


The Morrow's Island Horrors

by whymzycal



Category: Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-22
Updated: 2010-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:04:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whymzycal/pseuds/whymzycal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minister for Intelligence Thierry Corbett uncovers a nefarious plot against nature and Hir Majesty's government, and it's up to him and agent Kenneth Shaw to save the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morrow's Island Horrors

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Babydragoneye at the 2009 7thnight_smut exchange on LJ. I must extend a Very Special Thanks to my righteous betas, despina_moon and moshesque, and to the cheerleading squad. &amp;hearts Finally, to H. G. Wells and R. L. Stevenson: my apologies, but guys, you were a real inspiration.

> Old Thames House  
> London  
> June 5th, 1935
> 
> My dear Jeremy,
> 
> As I was cleaning out a long-disused suite in one of the older sections of the place (a clutter such as you can only imagine, I assure you; I include a rough sketch that you might not accuse me of exaggeration now all has been put to rights and the rooms are once again fit for use), I came across a curious bundle of odd papers, reports, letters, and memoranda at the back of one of the old desk's drawers. Knowing of your keen interest in the early years of the Intelligence Service, I set the bundle aside, remembering it only two days ago when I sat down and read it in its entirety.
> 
> The enclosed pages contain a true account of one of the most infamous plots against nature, humanity, and the security of Britain's Oriental interests in the 19th century. I am certain that until now, none but the men involved have known the whole of what would have been one of the greatest calamities to befall our nation during the latter half of Hir Majesty Katherine Charles's reign.
> 
> It seems you were right in insisting that the old horror tales were, however improbable, based in a gruesome reality, and that distant members of your family did indeed provide an invaluable service to Hir Majesty's government and family. And having been proved utterly wrong, I owe you a bottle of my father's finest port.
> 
> Let it never be said that a Harewood balks at paying his forfeits, even when he could have kept the secret, and thus the bottle of port, to himself.
> 
> Your most humbled servant,  
> Simon Harewood

  


~*~

 

**February 11th, 1898 – Thames House, London**

The report had been in the archives precisely where he'd first come across it as a cadet, the parchment slightly brown around the edges, the ink now faded to a dark umber at the ends of some words. Corbett squinted. It wasn't as old as all that, surely no more than twenty years at most. Inferior paper, then, or a combination of cheap paper and cheaper ink exposed for too long to damp air. He put the flickering lamp on his desk, coughing a little at the cloud of dust that puffed upward and then settled back down over his half-penned letter. There was always dust in his office--a consequence of his indifferent housekeeping. He sighed, unthinking, then leaned back and coughed again, more vigorously now, to clear his lungs of the newly raised dust. As the heavy motes subsided once more, he lifted the crackling parchment and peered through the smudged lenses of his spectacles to read its opening lines.

> Cape Town  
> Africa  
> April 4th, 1877
> 
> The _Amity,_ a small frigate out of Dover and captained by Wm. Morrow, presumed lost with all hands these last three months, is confirmed wrecked in the south Atlantic off the coast of Africa at lat. -14 degrees, 0 minutes &amp; long. 6 degrees, 40 minutes.
> 
> Capt. Morrow was rescued by the merchantman _Katy's Pride_ (Jas. Bettany, Capt.) on the outgoing leg of the Canton run. Bettany and crew found Morrow half-starved and near dead from thirst, huddled in the bottom of a small boat from the _Amity_ and raving about a "phantom island" at the lat. &amp; long. where he later claimed his ship ran aground on a sharp reef and broke to pieces. No such reef appears on any charts of the area. When pressed for further details, Morrow began to babble about "monstrous beast-men" and "cannibals," and cried out, "the screams--oh, God, the screams of the crew as they were torn apart and devoured alive!" whereupon he swooned, stricken by a sudden brain-fever. Capt. Bettany and the ship's surgeon despaired of his life, but a fortnight after his illness began, Morrow began to recover and was able to speak a little of what had befallen his ship.
> 
> As written in Bettany's log, Morrow related an improbable tale of a small island surrounded by uncanny, treacherous currents and winds that drove the _Amity_ onto a reef and carried the boats onto the strangely barren shore. He refused to say more for some time, hiding his face in his hands and weeping, until the surgeon braced him with a generous measure of grog. Thus fortified, Morrow continued, describing the geography of the rocky island, and its sparse vegetation and odd lack of fauna. Immediately after a small camp was pitched, eight of his men were sent out to search the interior of the island in the hopes of finding small game and water. They never returned. In the night, after the fires were lit, "hunched, terrifying shapes that stood upright like men but moved with loping gaits like animals raced into the camp to seize the crew by the ankles and dash their brains out on the tall, sharp rocks that rose from the shore. They fell upon us like wolves and tore out the men's throats to drink their still-flowing blood, baying and howling and snarling, eyes glowing green and yellow in the firelight. The beast-men chased us back to the ocean like a pack of hounds set on a fox." Morrow and a few others made it to the boats, but the currents and reef made escape difficult. Come sunrise, Morrow's boat was the only one left in the wide ocean. He drifted for three weeks until his rescue, and he spoke with none but Capt. Bettany and the ship's surgeon for the rest of the way here, to Cape Town.
> 
> I would not include Capt. Morrow's misfortune or the loss of the _Amity_ but for the other disquieting rumors that have come to light in the weeks before and after his arrival here in Cape Town. Two other ships (_Beatificat_ and _Fair Madeline_) reported unseasonable squalls around the lat. &amp; long. where the _Amity_ was lost, and the presence of strange, strong currents that pulled them from their course and cost them a week's time on their journeys. More disturbing is the report from Capt. Theo. Riley of _Neptune's Trident_, whose crew found what appeared to be the mangled torso of a man--but covered in a queer patchwork of pale skin and fur--in the bottom of a small, battered boat that might have come from the _Amity_. That boat was sighted 250 mi. south of where Morrow's "phantom" island lies.
> 
> I cannot say what this means for Hir Majesty's government or for the security of British interests in the Southern Hemisphere, nor can I say whether this is more than a series of highly improbable coincidences. I only know that ours is the business of coincidences, and so I forward you this information accordingly.
> 
> Lt. Edward Lawrence,  
> Agt. of the Intelligence Services  
> Africa division

  
Corbett removed his spectacles and wiped them on his sleeve, doing little more than smearing the dust around before putting them back on. Lawrence's report was pushed aside to reveal the next few pages in his stack. The crabbed handwriting, already difficult to decipher, was made even more illegible by the guttering lamplight and frequent ink blots that turned O's into squashed spiders and F's into tiny, elongated dragonflies. He cast a longing glance at the table against the far wall, missing the clear-burning, overhead naphtha lamp that made close work so easy. But the benchtop was a disgrace, littered with thin paper curls of half-limned schematics and strewn with bent compasses, slide rules that stuck, and other battered instruments half-repaired; it was no place to write out either orders or his thoughts. With a small pang of regret over the state of his worktable, Corbett turned back to his research.

The several pages in the middle of his stack contained little useful information. He balanced these out of his way, atop a precariously lopsided tower of books at the far corner of his desk. The bundle of faded newsprint and broadsides, however, a collection of odd and obscure items spanning the summer of '77 to the winter of '93, proved to be more interesting. Nearly a dozen sailors and a third as many aviators had come forward with tales of having sighted a mysterious island 500 miles off the Angolan coast, shrouded in impenetrable stormclouds, and protected by violent currents and jagged rocks. One aviator even claimed to have been close enough to hear the piercing howls of ravening beasts over the noise of the storm that had blown his dirigible far off course and brought it down in the ocean. None had addressed how they'd managed to see land through supposedly "impenetrable stormclouds," though it might have been necessary to allow for some poetic license on the part of the broadsides' authors. Corbett's mouth twitched into a wry smile.

He lit a hand-rolled cigarette as he began comparing the coordinates given in each case to the latitude and longitude in Lawrence's report, then did the calculations a second time for certainty's sake. Corbett exhaled, smoke curling downward in a vaporous imitation of his meditative frown. He'd found a standard deviation of some hundred-odd miles. A large number, given the long history of Britain's naval supremacy and the general accuracy of British maps and naval charts. But perhaps the discrepancies could be blamed a little on the scarcity of computing machines until seven years ago.

Corbett looked to the door out of habit, and once he was assured of its fastness, he unrolled the sea chart he'd liberated from the Admiralty's "secured" archives. A detailed map of the Angolan coastline and surrounding sea lay before him. Notations done in a neat hand marked trade routes, currents, and wind patterns, but the one section of ocean he was interested in bore only the words, "Here be madness." The wit who'd written them had flourished the letters with so many loops and whorls as to give them the appearance of something that might be found in the thickets of the Tulgey Wood. Corbett blinked behind the dusty lenses of his spectacles for a moment before reaching into one of the desk's bottommost drawers and drawing out a small brown phial. Using one of the brushes acting as a bookmark in his _On the Origin of Species_, he traced the wild curlicues and fanciful lines of the "Here be madness" with the clear liquid, and as he waited for the ink-eater to do its work, he lit another cigarette and thumbed through his growing notes on William Morrow's island.

While less than a score of men had claimed to sight the island itself, over twoscore accounts like that of the captain and crew of _Neptune's Trident_ existed, both in official reports and the sensationalized broadsides. Descriptions of the mangled bodies found in the waters varied from "abnormally muscled male torso, covered in a fur-like substance" to "humanoid arm with patches of rough, scaled skin and clockwork embedded in the joints of the fingers, wrist, and elbow" to "half-eaten corpse with oddly elongated limbs and curiously calico hair on what remains of the scalp." Superstition and hysteria might account for the similarity of the descriptions, but there was also the possibility of something more sinister at work. Corbett peered over the wire rims of his spectacles, past his sheaf of notes, to see that the ink-eater had done its work well; the flourishes of "madness" were gone, and the South Atlantic was once again clear.

Over the next hour, he sketched in his best estimate of the strange winds and currents reputed to run through and around the coordinates where the phantom island lay. His end result looked rather like a Gordian knot of many-colored inks, but it was not, to the best of his knowledge, inaccurate. He pursed his lips and sucked in a heavy breath, inhaling the cloud of dust and tobacco smoke that hung over his desk and darkened the pale light of his single lamp. If he followed the lines of the ships and dirigibles that had run afoul of the island's elemental surroundings, it led him more or less to a single spot 780 miles west-southwest of the Angolan coastline--a spot where a small boy with golden eyes and no memory of his past or family had been found drifting in the wide blue ocean.

It was possible, then, that the boy had indeed come from Morrow's Island-- for Corbett was now convinced that the island existed. And if he had come from there, he might hold the key to the terrible secrets that the island protected--whatever those might be. Corbett touched the spot where he'd drawn in the question mark representing the island. His fingertip came away wet with red ink, and he stuck it in his mouth, sucking absently as he considered what he knew. The information available to him wasn't nearly enough. It was all hearsay, exaggerated stories, and tales told by men terrorized by what they thought they had seen or heard. Yes, the island was real. But what was behind the stories, the mangled bodies, the unnatural storms and currents? Who had the boy been before being given to Charles Saunders to foster? And who was behind the monsters that stalked the poor child in his nightmares?

Corbett folded a corner of the chart out of the way and retrieved the simple, ciphered orders on their way to Captain Shaw of the _Silver Kite_. He was being co-opted by the Admiralty to ferry one of their sycophants, Tom Leeds, to a freight ship that would carry him and his belongings to South Africa, where he would take up his new post as governor of Cape Town and the outlying areas. Corbett's lip curled involuntarily. Leeds had always struck him as oily and insincere, a truly political creature driven by greed and a self-serving opportunism. He might be able to fool half of Parliament, but neither Corbett nor those in his circle believed any of his shallow, politically motivated platitudes to be anything but an attempt to garner favor and ever-higher appointments for himself. But … The hijacked Captain Shaw was on his way back from a long stint in the Americas, ostensibly a privateer tied to the Royal Air Corps and therefore subject to the whims of the Admiralty, but he'd been in the Intelligence Service almost as long as Corbett himself. He'd chafe at the ridiculous orders, but he'd follow them in spirit, if never in letter. Corbett's frown relaxed. Shaw would be dropping Leeds on an ocean-going vessel halfway down Africa's coast, 650 miles northeast of Morrow's Island.

Serendipity had smiled on him. Corbett reached for his pen and nibbled at the end for a moment, composing the message in his head before converting it to the uncomplicated alphanumeric cipher used for Shaw's orders.

> Captain Shaw,
> 
> As you may recall from our brief association four years ago (during the Canadian clockwork golem debacle and before my accession to this post), I have a particular interest in the eccentric tales and superstitions that proliferate among most sailors and aviators. I would consider it a kindness if, in the course of your travels back to London from your prolonged mission abroad, you might take note of any stories pertaining to Morrow's Island, the Morrow Horrors, and any similar "phantom island" phenomena. It is a pet theory of mine that perhaps such tales are caused by a mass hysterical reaction brought on by the monotony of long sea- and air-voyages, in conjunction with the fever-inducing humors of the tropical winds. G. Wells and R. Hyde once posited similar theories, you know, though they were carried off by some exotic ague during their exploration of the miasmic regions. Their work provides a fascinating beginning for further study.
> 
> But I forget myself; such must seem unbearably dull to those not interested in the subject.
> 
> I assure you that no detail should prove too small, particularly when a man of science is making the attempt to track something as ephemeral as a shared hallucination, and I thank you in advance for humoring a humble dabbler in both the medical sciences and the newer science of the mind.
> 
> Much obliged to you &amp;c.,  
> Minister for Intelligence  
> Thierry Corbett

  
Corbett nodded to himself, satisfied. He trusted that Shaw would humor him, seeing no harm in his request, and the act of gathering non-intelligence information would doubtless appeal to Shaw's unconventional nature. He might even be amused--if not a little bemused--by Corbett's enthusiastic, neophytic interest in the subject. Yes, he was certain Shaw would come through for him, even if Shaw remembered that he had expressed only the barest curiosity about sailors' superstitions, and none whatsoever regarding the phantom island phenomena.

Corbett folded the orders and, after several minutes of increasingly frantic searching for the seal that was eventually found in his tobacco pouch, pressed the Intelligence Services insignia into the pool of dark blue wax to seal them. He deposited the orders in the stiff dispatch tube, then stood and tucked the tube into his waistcoat. He'd take the orders to the courier station himself, and then … A bundle of papers slid from the edge of his desk when he bumped it with his hip. He sighed. Perhaps then he ought to see about tidying the place a bit before reading the new reports coming in with the day's first courier run.

 

**May 3rd, 1898 – London**

The sound a man's head made when bouncing off a cobblestone was quite different from the sound his head would make bouncing off the hard-packed dirt of a Nevada street. It was far more satisfying, for one. Captain Kenneth Shaw smiled without humor and put the heel of his boot between the drunk's shoulder blades, leaning into it and pinning him to the ground. The two sailors still standing eyed him warily. They weren't so drunk they'd make the same mistake as their fellow and rush in blindly. Pity. It would have ended things far sooner, and he could have gone back into the tavern to start his second pint. Now he'd have to coax them in before laying them out next to their friend.

"Come on, then," he said, beckoning. The wide iron-titanium alloy ring on his right hand glinted a muted silver in the wavering light of the gas lamps. The taller of the two remaining men noticed, grimacing in understanding as his eyes cut to Shaw's left hand and the identical ring there. Shaw didn't need to look down to see the ugly mark he'd left on the first sailor's cheek. He'd hit hard enough that the seaman had been unconscious before dropping to the road, the heft and hardness of the ring adding a little more weight to an already heavy punch.

"God-damned lightfoot," the shorter man spat. There was vehemence to the insult that made Shaw more wary; this man's anger went beyond the usual rivalry between sailors and aviators. He shifted his footing, feeling the familiar resistance of the sheath strapped to his left thigh as his muscles flexed. He'd use the Bowie knife if he had to, but only if they couldn't resolve things the proper way--by brawling.

"Wrong-minded, unnatural …" the drunk continued, adding a second layer of contempt to his original slander. His wine-flushed face grew ruddier with the heat of his anger and indignation.

"I've done nothing to you," said Shaw reasonably. "This is the first time I've been back to London these six years."

"And where've you been, then?" the man continued. He raised his hand, prepared to throw the heavy, half-full bottle in it. "Riding the tradewinds and stealing the commerce that's belonged to good, hardworking sailors! Likely buggered your way 'cross the overland routes 'twixt here and China, too! Bloody _lightfoot!"_ He cocked his elbow, snarling, but before he could let fly, a dark shape detached itself from the shadows and jerked him back by his wrist. The bottle broke on the cobblestones, and the sharp smell of cheap wine cut through the faint stench wafting in from the docks. Shaw lunged forward. The taller sailor rushed him, fists raised, but Shaw sidestepped him and clubbed him to the ground before he got in a hit. He spun on his heel, his own fists ready.

"Captain Shaw?" A cultured voice, pleasant and familiar somehow, brought him up short. "Your man Babbage said I might find you here." A tall, slender man stepped over the crumpled form of the angry drunk and into the circle of soft light beneath the nearby lamppost, his face pale and so fine-featured as to be pretty, even in the poor illumination. His dark hair was unruly, long enough at the back of his neck that it covered his collar like an aviator's, and his spectacles looked smudged. Those were the least singular things about his appearance, however. Shaw blinked as he took in the apron and protective oversleeves that made his new ally look like a printer, or perhaps a draftsman's apprentice.

"Fisticuffs," the maybe-stranger observed. "My, your reputation as a brawler hasn't been at all exaggerated, has it? But you were as, er, physical during our short acquaintance in Canada, if I recall."

"Spymaster Corbett," Shaw said in recognition, a little dismayed. He'd hoped to avoid reporting in until morning, or even for a couple of days. He ought to have known better. Of course the Minister for Intelligence would know the moment his zip was tied up at the air-docks. "That is, Minister Corbett," he amended. He stood up a little straighter and waved his hand in the vicinity of his forehead, as close to a salute as he'd get. He was dressed something like the captain of a privateer airship, and as far as anyone not in the Intelligence Services knew, that's all he was. He'd be damned if he'd bow and scrape like a regular serviceman.

"Spymaster is more accurate, if not very flattering," Corbett remarked, bending to look at the first man Shaw had taken down. He clucked his tongue at the bloody welt on the man's cheek. "Effective." He glanced at the rings on Shaw's hands as he stood, then offered his own hand to shake. Shaw took it. "'Corbett' will do. I don't stand much on ceremony unless I have to, and I daresay neither do you. And anyway, nobody will say anything useful or careless in my presence if people must 'Minister' me here and 'Spymaster' me there. So yes, 'Corbett' will do, if you please." The pressure of his fingers was firm, and Shaw could feel calluses at odds with Corbett's eccentric, unassuming appearance as he pulled his hand away.

"Sir," Shaw said, a little bewildered.

"'Corbett,'" the spymaster reminded him. He turned away and beckoned over his shoulder. "I hope you've brought your reports with you--formal and informal. Though I must tell you I'm far more eager for your informal report. Have you the information on Morrow's Island and related phenomena?" He stopped and looked back at Shaw, his face shining with anticipation. Shaw couldn't see his eyes behind the smudged spectacles, but he could imagine them lit with the same excitement evident in Corbett's expression.

"The detailed reports're locked in a chest in my cabin," Shaw began, "but I can tell you--"

"Splendid! You must come back to my offices at once, and I shall send a runner to your airship to retrieve the reports immediately." Corbett began walking away quickly, pausing now and again to peer back at Shaw a little anxiously, as though he feared Shaw might get lost or give him the slip. Shaw was beginning to wonder how Corbett managed as Minister for Intelligence. He seemed unequal to the task, though he'd been better than competent those few days in Canada. It had to be a fiction, this eccentric personality walking in front of him. Corbett stumbled a little on a loose cobblestone and squawked in an undignified manner, arms windmilling wildly yet somehow gracefully as he caught his balance before continuing on.

Maybe it was no fiction after all. Shaw pulled his cap down to hide his raised eyebrows and followed, marking the streets and alleys as they walked along the riverside roads. And if his gaze settled overlong on the pleasant view of Corbett's backside now and again, none but Shaw himself would be the wiser.

 

Shaw looked as though he'd never seen so many books, scraps of paper, odd-looking instruments, and disassembled mechanisms together in one place before. Corbett surveyed the room with a critical eye. Seen from the standpoint of a newcomer, he supposed the clutter was indeed dizzying.

"Please, take a seat," he said, gesturing vaguely at a chair-like lump bristling with books stacked every-which-way. If he squinted, he found they looked rather like a pagoda.

Shaw blinked at him, then pushed his cap back on his head so his eyes were no longer in the shadow of its brim. His hair, unusually short for an aviator, was a deep black that seemed to absorb even the bright light of the overhead naphtha lamp, and his eyes were a clear, sharp blue. Despite his obvious confusion over where to sit--or perhaps even stand--he carried himself in an easy manner, his long limbs relaxed, his thumb hooked in the low-slung gunbelt that crossed his hips. His shirt was open at the throat, revealing tanned skin, and the faded black leather of his aviator's trenchcoat creaked softly as he raised his arm to point meaningfully where Corbett had indicated he should sit.

"Oh. I see." Corbett nodded, anticipating the question. "Yes, we must move them out of the way." He stood there, looking between Shaw and the chair, frowning thoughtfully. "But where to put them? That is the question." His bookshelves were filled to bursting with volumes that veritably cascaded to the floor in an angular paper-and-board waterfall. They could take no more weight. The floor was in little better order, heaped with still more books that ranged from cheap, stitched-spine folios to a few gorgeous, leather-bound first editions covered in dust. He was still considering the problem, lips pursed and brow furrowed as he muttered under his breath, when he was brought back to himself by something heavy landing on his foot.

"Ah, damn. Sorry, sir." Shaw didn't sound very apologetic as he bent to retrieve _Maps of the Earth's Interior, A Hypothetical Geological Study_ from where it lay across Corbett's instep. Corbett wiggled his toes tentatively.

"No harm done." He looked around, pleased. "Excellent, I see you've cleared a space." The chair was once again clearly a chair, not a makeshift bookshelf, and the stacks around the desk were no longer haphazard or uneven. Corbett walked past them experimentally, inordinately pleased when the tread of his feet didn't cause a miniature avalanche and the cuffs of his trousers didn't catch on corners jutting out at odd angles. He beamed at Shaw, who was watching him with something between amusement and confusion.

"I suppose you've a good deal of experience in making clever use of space." Corbett was still beaming as he went behind his desk and sat down, planting his elbows upon its edge and resting his chin on his hands.

"Yeah, I reckon so," Shaw answered. "Comes with captaining a zip. Not a lot of space to spare if you're full up on passengers, cargo, and supplies." He sat in the chair across from Corbett, stifling a cough as dust fanned up and out from the cushion.

"Are you quite well, Captain?" Corbett colored his voice with abstract concern as Shaw coughed again. "You haven't contracted an illness, have you? You did pass through the tropics on your way back to London, going directly through some of the miasmic regions, if I'm not mistaken."

"N-no." Shaw coughed one last time, his face a little flushed. "The dust, I'm sure."

"Ah. If you say so." Corbett pulled a slightly worse-for-the-wear cigarette and his battered naphtha lighter from a pocket cunningly sewn at the bottom of his apron. As he thumbed the catch on the lighter's hinged lid and flicked the sparking wheel to start the flame, he watched Shaw finish his surreptitious cataloging of the room. Shaw was quite subtle as he marked most of the more unusual features of the office, possibly even intuiting the locations of the few camouflaged bolt-holes and safes--no mean feat, particularly when Corbett considered the state of his rooms. "Very well, Captain. Your report, if you please."

Shaw's brows rose infinitesimally. "I've heard of 'phantom islands' off the Pacific coast of South America and close to the Arctic circle. Now, most of those are attributed to the native gods of the area. And, from what I observed, the local liquor. Powerful stuff, most of it." Shaw grinned as he reached into his trenchcoat and drew out a flask. It was the bright silver of aluminum-titanium alloy, etched with a winged skull. Shaw took a healthy pull, then tilted the flask towards Corbett in invitation. The unusual liquor burned pleasantly during its long, slow slide to his stomach, and Corbett swallowed a second mouthful, appreciative of its mellow heat, before handing it back.

"These islands are thought to be paradises, and they only appear to the truly devout or worthy. That's fitting for the homes of gods, I'd say. But Morrow's Island, that's a different story. I heard plenty about the Horrors on my way up the African coast, and after having flown the upper South Atlantic route on my way to the Americas, I can tell you this much: the tales about the strange weather are true. There's an uncanny storm system some 500 miles off the coast of Angola, and if a captain doesn't give it a wide berth, either in the air or on the water, he's as like to lose his ship as not."

"You say the stories about the fierce winds and thunderclouds are more than common air- and water-borne exaggeration. I was given to understand that the entirety of the area is prone to violent weather at various times of the year, so I can see how that might be, hm, _stretched_ to a perpetual feature of the route." Corbett kept his expression guileless and interested.

Shaw snorted. "It's a system that sits there year 'round, stirring up the currents of both air and sea. Any captain worth his aether steers clear. It doesn't budge. Not when the tradewinds change, not with the seasons. It's like the storm is tethered at minus fourteen and six-forty."

"Fascinating." Corbett stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette and felt around under his papers for something with which to write, eventually clipping the smooth brass tube of a drafting pen with his fingernail. Shaw waited, an expression of deferential patience in place. Corbett wasn't fooled, however, and thus hastened to see whether the pen was in good working order, first unscrewing the nib to check the level of ink in its glass reservoir, then drawing the point across the ball of his thumb. The line it left behind was straight and even, with only a small blob of ink to foul it at its starting point. Corbett licked at the ink to clean his thumb, then poised his pen above a convenient scrap of paper, expectant. The silence grew, until finally he looked up to see Shaw watching him, a queer look in his eyes.

"Er, Shaw?"

"You've got a spot of ink--" Shaw touched his bottom lip with the tip of his own thumb, then ran his tongue over the place in a gesture that looked entirely unconscious, and which Corbett found very appealing.

"Have I?" Corbett brought his hand to his mouth and covered it with his fingers, scrubbing lightly. His lips felt warm as he allowed himself a fleeting smile. "Ah, well." He set pen to paper once again. "What have you heard about--"

"Right," Shaw muttered, sounding a little distracted. He rubbed his chin in a meditative way that Corbett recognized from their few days' work together in Canada. "Right," he said again, this time in a more normal tone, "the Horrors. I asked at every wayship on my skip back 'cross the North Atlantic. Sailors and marines love to gossip, and as fellow military men, they'll speak honestly with an aviator serving with the Corps--once he's stood them a few pints from his private reserve. Seeing as they're stationed there in the first place to aid us in the crossings, they're more kindly disposed to us after a draught or two than the rest of their kind." Shaw's smile held but a trace of real humor. "But I met only one man, captain of the _HMAS Vulcan_, who claimed to have seen a real Horror remnant. Said one of his lookouts spotted it on his last run from Rio de Janerio to Loanda. His surgeon preserved the hand in spirits and dissected the rest of the arm and shoulder on the spot, and they left both the hand and the surgeon's sketches with the governor's staff at the fort in Lagos, Nigeria."

Corbett's pen stopped racing across the paper. "Did the _Vulcan_'s captain say on what date the remnant was discovered? When it was left at the fort, or to whom it was given?" He twiddled the pen and fumbled it, but caught it again without looking before it fell to the desk. "I wonder if it's still there … It would be marvelous to see whether the hand belongs to a sea creature--a pinniped swept away by a storm, perhaps?--or some unfortunate sailor, or a great ape, part of a menagerie that somehow fell overboard during transport … Any of those might account for a Horror after a few days in the water, mightn't they?" He glanced at Shaw to see if he was in agreement, or if he, like Corbett, suspected that the Horrors might be real.

"I suppose they might," Shaw said, nodding slowly. "But you can see for yourself when your runner brings my chest. We stopped over in Lagos for a few days to resupply and refit the _Kite_ before collecting Leeds and his servants, so I paid an after-hours visit to the fort."

"Splendid!" Corbett's wide smile was utterly genuine, and it grew wider as he saw Shaw grin back in response. "Is there anything else?"

"No one I spoke with at any of the air- or sea-ports had much to say about Morrow's Island or the Horrors beyond what's commonly told between here and the Cape. I took down some of the more thrilling versions, but they all sound like they've jumped from ship to ship. If ever there was truth to the tale, it's lost in the tellings I heard. I even asked Leeds--a weasel of a man, or I've never met one--" Here Shaw touched the brim of his cap in a way that Corbett knew was meant to draw his attention away from the too-hard look in Shaw's eyes and the tightening of his jaw, "--but he put me off with a sniff and stayed in his cabin for the whole of the week he was my 'guest.' Forbade his servants and his son to speak to me or my crew, too. Man was downright inhospitable!"

"Leeds had Nicholas with him?" Corbett felt his attention narrow; this was interesting news. No one had seen young Nicholas Leeds since he'd been a tot in leading strings. After the boy's mother had died, when he was scarce a year old, he had fallen gravely ill. Leeds had taken him away to convalesce elsewhere, some said in France, others Switzerland, and still others claimed that that the boy was living in exile somewhere on the African continent, which could explain Leeds's regular travels to and from Cape Town. Every time Leeds returned to England to put his family affairs in order, to curry favor with the more powerful lords of the realm, or to petition for greater autonomy in his dealings abroad, Nicholas was conspicuous in his absence. One of Leeds's cousins, in line to inherit the family estates should Leeds leave no heirs, was beginning to claim that the boy had died many years ago, and Leeds was only perpetuating the fiction that he was alive and still heir. The cousin had begun making noise about petitioning the courts to require that Leeds produce his son and verify his legitimacy, not claiming outright that Leeds would try to foist off an impostor as his heir, but certainly giving anyone in Society who'd listen that such a foul trick was not at all beyond the head of the family. Corbett privately agreed.

"Yeah. Quiet boy, I'd say near twelve, and small for his age. He seemed pale and sickly from the little I saw of him. 'Course, air travel, even in a zip as gentle as the _Kite_, doesn't agree with everyone." Shaw looked dubious as he said this last.

Corbett would have asked more about Shaw's impressions of Leeds, and far more about young Nicholas, but a knock at the door interrupted him before he could begin.

"Come," he called. The door opened to reveal one of his more junior agents, a tall, broad fellow dressed in nondescript clothing. He carried Shaw's secured chest in his arms. "Thank you, Barlow. You can put it … er …" Corbett glanced around his office. There was really nowhere to put the chest, which was rather larger than he'd expected--almost too much for Barlow to carry easily. Shaw came to his rescue.

"Put it here," he suggested, swiftly moving the piles of books in front of Corbett's desk to form a sort of table just wide enough to support it. Barlow gave Shaw a grateful nod as he deposited the chest and backed out of the room, tripping only once on his way to the door.

Shaw drew his knife and rapped the lower left corner of the lock smartly with the hilt. "Percussion lock," he explained. Corbett nodded. He could hear tiny, metallic clicks as the clockwork gears within responded to the vibrations and realigned themselves. Several of the smaller gears on his worktable came from a similar mechanism--an ingenious device, really, which was keyed to a specific strike made with a specific instrument. Not everyone could use them, as few possessed the skill necessary to strike with the precisely the same degree of force every time.

The lock snapped open, and Corbett came around peer inside. Several neatly stacked, bound journals took up most of the interior. Shaw lifted those out and set them on the floor, at the foot of the book-table. A large, canvas-wrapped object and a sheaf of well-worn papers took up the rest of the space.

"Is that the remnant?" Corbett asked. He felt giddy with curiosity, though he was certain it didn't show.

"And the surgeon's report, complete with sketches. My other reports--" Shaw broke off and smothered a mighty yawn. Corbett blinked at him in surprise, then picked up the sketches and waved them under his nose.

"Thank you, Captain. That will be all this evening. If you'd be so kind as to return tomorrow around tea-time, I should like to go over your reports and this information about the remnant in detail. I trust that will be satisfactory?" He barely registered Shaw's confused half-salute or the sound of the door closing as the captain left the room, for he was already through most of the first page of the surgeon's notes, quite deep in thought as groped in his apron pocket for another cigarette and then turned to his desk for his pen.

 

**May 4th, 1898 – Thames House, London**

The spymaster lay sprawled on his stomach across a vast, uneven pallet made of dozens upon dozens of books spread helter-skelter over the floor, his arm curled possessively around the sealed jar that contained the Horror's preserved hand. Several of the documents that had been on his desk the night before had fallen to cover him like a thin paper quilt.

"Corbett?" Shaw picked his way through a sea of books that hadn't been there sixteen hours earlier, and knelt next to Corbett's prostrate form. The gentle flutter of a penny dreadful entitled "The Mad Men Who Came from the Moon!" showed that he still breathed. "Minister Corbett!" Shaw grasped his shoulder and shook it firmly.

"Mmh?" Corbett's eyes opened slowly, and Shaw sat back on his heels.

"What happened?"

Corbett lifted his head, his gray eyes shifting from bleariness to wakeful confusion in short order. "I suppose I must have fallen asleep over my research. Is it tomorrow afternoon already?" he asked doubtfully, pushing himself up. The layer of books under his hands slid away, and he scrabbled for purchase until Shaw gripped him by the collar and hauled him upright to lean against the makeshift book-table.

"Where'd all these books come from?" Shaw stood and nudged _An Illustrated Anatomy of Large, Semi-Aquatic Creatures_ aside with the toe of his boot.

"Er." Corbett removed his spectacles and rubbed at an angry-looking red spot on the side of his nose. "Here and there," he said, gesturing tiredly, "though now that you ask, I believe the bulk of the natural studies and anatomy books came from the bedchamber." He tilted his head towards the far corner of the room, where a small door, barricaded by still more books and an old-fashioned astrolabe, was hidden. He yawned widely, eyelids drooping.

"You sleep here?" Shaw couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice, though he did manage to stop his eyes widening in horror at the thought.

"Well, over there," Corbett corrected him, pointing at the chair behind his desk, "when I do sleep. There's just so much to read, you see, so much to learn and to consider beyond even what's immediately significant to the security of the realm. One can never be certain what knowledge might be necessary, what information might prove essential to solving some crucial mystery that prevents disaster here or abroad. But surely you know this as well as I do; you were the one who found the narwhal-tusk button that led us to LeClerq, and thus to his golem factory." Corbett yawned again, and this time his eyelids drooped so low that only a sliver of gray remained visible.

"I see," Shaw said quietly. And he did. He and Corbett had crossed paths only occasionally during the golem incident, working different angles of the problem and reporting individually to the governor-general of Newfoundland. Light had been visible under the door of Corbett's room each night, and it was he who had connected the tiny coat of arms cut into the button with LeClerq, which had enabled them to follow him to the golem factory mere days before the clockwork terrors were due to be completed and shipped to all corners of the empire to wreak God-only-knew what kind of mischief. Shaw would have cottoned to LeClerq sooner or later, but like as not, he wouldn't have done so until after the first shipments had been sent. It was Corbett's insatiable thirst for knowledge, even to the exclusion of sleep, that had brought the case to a swift and comparatively easy close. That, and his own wicked aim. A soft snore disrupted his recollections, and Shaw looked down. Corbett had fallen asleep again, head tilted back and resting against the lid of Shaw's secured chest. Sighing quietly, Shaw removed his cap and coat, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.

 

"Thierry, what in blazes are you doing, sleeping at your desk at this hour? And what's happened to your office?"

Corbett startled awake and blinked at the blurry, golden-haloed figure before him. "Hullo, Charles. Er, what do you mean about my office?" He patted at the top of his head, then each of his pockets, producing what seemed to be his last cigarette and his lighter, but no spectacles. With a huff of impatience, Hir Majesty's favorite nephew snatched the spectacles off the now-tidy desk and handed them to him. Corbett put them on and looked around the room in bemusement. He was no longer slumped against a pile of books at the front of his desk, but sitting in his chair, behind it. Charles Saunders stood on the other side, arms crossed as he glared down at him. Corbett paid him no mind; Charles's customary expressions only ever varied between what Corbett half-jestingly called "terminal ennui" and this, "acute vexation." In his white evening dress and with his long, sun-gold hair streaming down his back, he resembled nothing so much as a peevish, pre-Raphaelite angel.

"What's happened to my office," Corbett repeated. "I'm sure I don't know. Are you certain this _is_ my office? I don't believe it's ever been so orderly." He lit the cigarette and drew in a deep breath, holding the hot, heavy vapor in his lungs as he admired the neat bookshelves, the tidy benchtop, and his newly uncluttered desk. And then let it all out in a rush of dismay, exclaiming, "How will I ever find anything? Nothing is where I left it!"

"I don't recall that you've ever had much success at finding anything, Thierry," Charles observed a little stiffly. "Such as the shipping manifests you borrowed last week and failed to return."

"Ah. Yes, those are … That is to say, they were …" Corbett reached for the nearest stack of documents and frowned. "Drat. Captain Shaw!"

A muted thumping noise and a stifled cry of pain came from his bedchamber, and then Shaw emerged, looking sweaty and disheveled and … virile. Corbett noted his bare, muscular forearms and the tantalizing vee of damp skin below his throat with warm approval. A dark streak of grime slanted across his brow, giving him a slightly severe, brooding look that rivaled the severe, brooding frown that Charles turned on him.

"Sir?" Shaw stepped into the office, limping a little, and pointed his chin in Charles's direction. "Who's the proper English rose?"

Charles bristled, spine stiffening. "Who's the uncouth brute?" he shot back. Shaw grinned lazily and gave one of his insouciant half-salutes.

"Cap'n Kenneth Shaw, privateer of Hir Majesty's Royal Air Corps, at your service. And that's _rambunctious bronco_, beggin' your honor's pardon," he drawled, tilting his hips forward in a subtly lewd gesture that neither Corbett nor Charles could mistake. Corbett's warm approval turned to an even warmer amusement as he hid his smile behind a hastily blown smoke-ring.

"May I present Prince Charles Saunders, Viscount Severn and the Monarch's most favored relation?" He changed the tenor of his smile so his mirth was less evident, and looked to Charles. "This rogue is Kenneth Shaw, nominally a privateer in the Corps, but in actuality one of my agents. You must excuse him; his last posting had him in the Americas for six years."

"Your pardon, your honor--that is, Highness," Shaw said again, this time without the drawl. His posture changed so that he was standing at his full height, no longer slumped in a discourteous slouch, though the glimmer in his eye suggested that his deference was at least partially feigned. He came forward to offer his hand. Charles took it slowly, and Corbett beamed.

"And now we are all friends," he proclaimed, his good cheer unaffected even when they turned to eye him with near-identical looks of skepticism. Corbett ignored the pair of them and indicated the chair standing to Charles's right. "Please, do take a seat, and tell me, Charles: to what do I owe this visit? It looks as though you're on your way to a ball or fete of one sort or another, if I'm not mistaken."

"Lady Audley's birthday ball, as you well know," Charles replied a little snappishly, declining the offer of the chair with a shake of his head. "And I came for my shipping manifests."

"Lady Audley's birthday ball is on the other side of London." Corbett picked up a neatly squared sheaf of documents and riffled through them, then did the same with two more stacks, waiting.

"Very well; I'm certain you'll find out listening at doors and bribing the servants, even if I don't tell you. I'm shirking, confound you!" Charles confessed, ill humor making his cheeks pink. "My aunt vowed to Lady Audley, one decrepit harpy to another, that I'd be there to represent the family. If I arrive just as the festivities end, I've still attended. The wretched old baggage will have to be satisfied with that, Monarch or no," he finished acidly. Corbett didn't reply, well used to Charles's choleric disposition where Hir Majesty was concerned.

Captain Shaw, on the other hand, burst out laughing. He had a loud, rollicking "ha!" of a laugh--brash, hearty, and oddly infectious. It had a certain rough charm, much like the captain himself.

"You sound more like a petulant schoolboy than a prince!" And before Charles could answer him back, he'd leaned across Corbett, plucked a pile of papers from right in front of him, and presented them to Charles with a flourish. "Your shipping manifests, if I'm not mistaken." He tilted the stack slightly, squinting at the signature and seal at the bottom of the first document. "But with the regular state of the Minister's rooms, who's to say they'd be so easily found?" He laughed again, more of a chuckle this time, and gave them both a wink.

He was saved from Charles's inevitable response by the sound of a shout and a scuffle in the hall. Corbett looked up sharply, but Shaw had already moved between Charles and the door, only to be nearly bowled over by a short, fast-moving blur that burst into the room and crashed into him.

"Humpf!" Shaw took an unsteady step back and bumped into Charles, who shoved him away--though less roughly than Corbett might have expected.

"Ow!" The figure on the floor, a small, brown-haired, golden-eyed boy about eight years of age, rubbed his forehead as he stared up at Shaw. "You're so tall!" he said in surprise. Shaw blinked at him, then leaned down and lifted him to his feet.

"And just who're you, little fella?" The drawl was back. The boy's eyes grew wide with delight.

"You! You little urchin!" Barlow hung back in the doorway. "I'm sorry, your Highness, Minister. I don't know how he got past me. He's just so bloody _quick_."

Charles was rubbing his own forehead and frowning mightily. "Geoff, how--?"

"I heard you say you were coming to Uncle Thierry's before Lady Audley's 'damned birthday ball,' and I wanted to come, too. To see Uncle Thierry, not Lady Audley. Unless," he continued brightly, "there's pudding at her damned birthday ball!" Charles had hidden his face in his hand by the end of this confession, and Shaw collapsed against Corbett's desk, laughing uproariously. Corbett smothered his own laughter, wondering with no small amount of amusement what his friend would do.

"There will be no damned birthday ball for you, you troublesome little monkey," Charles groaned. "If I thought I could trust you to go quietly, I'd send you home with Barlow right now. As it is, I shall have to take you back myself, and will therefore miss the ball entirely. Bloody-- I'll never hear the end of it! The old hag will chew off my ear, Lady Audley shall never forgive me, and my life will go from Purgatory to a full-fledged circle of hell!"

"Or he could stay here while you make your appearance at the da--the birthday ball," Shaw said, still chuckling. "I don't know about pudding, but it's past my suppertime, and I think 'Uncle Thierry' here owes me some victuals. And I still have a few books and things to put away here and there. I could use the help," he finished, glancing over at Corbett. He reached out and tousled Geoff's hair. Corbett found himself oddly gratified both by the offer and the way Shaw sought his agreement without precisely asking permission. He was also gratified by Shaw's easy manner with the boy. And judging by the way Charles was now watching him, he agreed. Geoff was too often merely tolerated out of respect for Charles's position, and Corbett knew it caused him a distress he was loath to admit. Shaw's casual acceptance, though he knew nothing of Geoff's short history, and despite the fact that he and Charles seemed destined to be at odds, would go a long way to soothing Charles's displeasure with him.

"And it would give you the best of reasons to excuse yourself directly," Corbett put in. "After all, who can say what mischief Geoff might get up to here at Thames House? Though this will be a fine opportunity for a reading lesson, once you've done the work Captain Shaw sets you to," he continued, turning to Geoff. "I've the most wonderful illustrated book of German fairy tales. There's a story of a house made of gingerbread, a story about a giant turnip, and one of a magical tablecloth that covers itself in a feast. Ah. That is, I _had_ a wonderful illustrated book of German fairy tales." He looked around the room doubtfully, and then at Shaw, who gave him a lazy nod. "There, you see? It's settled."

"Please, Charles, may I?" Geoff turned his wide, pleading eyes on his guardian. Corbett didn't miss the flicker of surprise and curiosity that crossed Shaw's features at Geoff's form of address, but to his credit, he said nothing that might have incited Charles's temper once more.

"Hmph. If you creep out of the nursery and stow away in the carriage again," Charles began, but he was drowned out by the boy's shout of glee, and threw up his hands in a gesture of mock-defeat. "I wish you much joy of the wretched little creature," he said, the severity of his words belied by the gentle way he put his hand on Geoff's back as he clung briefly to his leg. Corbett smiled to himself. He had never seen Charles happier than he'd been these four months, since Hir Majesty had given him the boy to foster.

"C'mon, varmint," Shaw said. "Uncle Thierry's books won't put themselves away, will they," and he led Geoff to the bedchamber door. "Have fun at the damned ball, sir," he called over his shoulder with a wide grin.

"Yes, have fun at the damned ball!" Geoff parroted, waving goodbye.

Charles said nothing. He only shook his head in resigned helplessness as he followed Barlow into the hallway.

 

Corbett's long, pale fingers curled over the polished wood of the gearstick's knob. Their tips were stained yellow from nicotine and smudged with ink like a scholar's, but they looked strong and capable for all that. Shaw rubbed his forefinger along the back of his thumb, remembering their handshake the previous night and the subtle roughness of Corbett's callused palm against his own.

The motor carriage swerved alarmingly, and Shaw looked up to see Corbett steering with his knee, an ever-deepening frown wrinkling his brow as he ran his other hand over his chest and along his thigh, dipping into his pockets and dropping various items into the apron covering his lap.

"Hey, hey!" Shaw leaned over and gripped the wheel, yanking it towards him. The weak light from the carriage's headlamps briefly illuminated the base of an unlit gaslamp before being swallowed once again by the thick, gray haze of the London fog at night. "What're you doing?" He had to shout to make himself heard over the clatter the carriage made as they bumped along the uneven ground.

"I seem to be out of cigarettes," Corbett informed him. He glanced at where Shaw's hand was wrapped around the steering wheel and said hopefully, "Might I prevail upon you to take the wheel while I--"

"No!" Shaw yanked the wheel again, and the carriage only just missed another lamppost.

"Ah." Corbett looked rather sad as he slid his hand in place over Shaw's. His little finger brushed along Shaw's wrist. The gentle touch made Shaw's skin tingle in its wake, and he let go of the wheel more slowly than he'd meant to.

"So young Geoff isn't Saunders's son?" he asked, pitching his voice to cut through the rattle and stutter of the steam-run engine. The motor carriage was an older model, and it ran on an inferior grade of naphtha--once-refined, if Shaw's nose had identified the hot, acrid scent correctly.

"No, a foundling," Corbett answered. He glanced over at Shaw, probably gauging the depth of his interest and the motivation behind it, Shaw thought. "Hir Majesty has a queer sense of humor. Geoff was brought to the court as a curiosity of sorts, a wild boy with no name, no relations, and no memory of his home or his people. He might as well have been raised by wolves, for the way he conducted himself. But when he saw Charles … He took one look at Charles and was entranced. The Monarch only laughed and declared that he was now Charles's responsibility. I believe se said something to the effect that se thought they'd be good for each other--that each would keep the other on his toes. Thus far, I cannot say that se's been wrong. Geoff has bloomed." Corbett smiled, a quick upturn of his lips that did more to illuminate his face than the murky yellow gaslight. "And so has Charles." He glanced at Shaw again. "Why do you ask?"

Shaw saw no reason to avoid the question, or to hide the hardness in his voice or his expression.

"I saw marks on his wrists--I'd say old scars from heavy shackles, if I didn't think it too cruel to be true, on so small a child--when we were putting the last of your books in order."

"He was in shackles when he was found, and they were still on him when he was brought before Hir Majesty." Corbett's tone sounded carefully neutral, like he didn't think he could trust himself if he showed his true feelings, or like he was hiding something. He continued, his voice a little softer and the gray of his eyes flashing behind his spectacles, "He would let no one with the proper tools get close enough to cut them away, until Charles did it himself." Corbett's hands flexed on the wheel. Shaw thought he knew how Corbett felt. His own fingers twitched, a mirror to the righteous anger that flashed through him, and he reached over and plucked the tobacco pouch and small, hinged box of rolling papers from Corbett's lap to give himself something to do. Almost too fast to follow, Corbett's eyes flicked down to his lap and then to Shaw, and then back to the road before them. Shaw was only mildly surprised under his anger; while very few would have taken note of his quick pickpocket's grab, especially on a ride as rough as this one, he was beginning to understand that the spymaster was less harebrained than he appeared.

"And you don't know--" Shaw tore the first paper and crumpled it more savagely than it deserved. He was more careful with the second.

"No. Not even the men who found him could tell us anything. And Geoff himself can tell us even less. What little he recollects he sees in dreams, and when he wakes, he can't speak for his terror. All Charles and I have been able to glean is that it was a cold place, and dark. He was chained to a stone wall and left alone for days, perhaps even weeks, at a time." The careful neutrality of his voice was gone now; Shaw could hear the icy chill under his words.

They clattered and bounced along, unspeaking, for the next several minutes. Using what was left in the tobacco pouch, Shaw managed to roll nearly a dozen cigarettes. The tobacco itself had a sweetly spiced, earthy odor; he recognized it as one of the scents that permeated Corbett's rooms and clung to the man himself. When it mingled with the smell of dust, fresh ink, and well-seasoned paper, it was very pleasant indeed. He inhaled deeply as he drew his tongue along the last edge, then cursed as the carriage bumped and zig-zagged sharply. The coppery taste of his blood washed over the dull, pulpy flavor of the cigarette papers, and he turned his head to the side to spit.

"Oh! My apologies, Captain," Corbett said. He stared straight ahead, eyes cutting to the side and back so quickly that Shaw almost thought it was a trick of the low light. "I'm afraid I allowed my attention to wander."

"Eh, I've had worse." He spat again, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "We're here. And I see Babbage has left the lights on." The _Silver Kite_ loomed in front of them, luminous even in the heavy gray-white haze all around them.

The motor carriage sputtered to a noisy stop, the steam-run engine burbling and wheezing in protest until Corbett got out and twisted the knob that allowed air to flow into the miniature boiler. The flame surrounding the naphtha brick shrank until it was no more than an angry orange glow, and the harsh smell of the of the once-refined naphtha was carried away by the damp river fog, to be replaced by the cleaner smells of the twice- and thrice-refined naphtha that permeated all air-docks. Shaw pushed back the brim of his cap and smiled up at the _Kite_, resting in her cradle.

"She's lovely," Corbett said at his elbow. Shaw hadn't heard him approach, but he didn't let Corbett see that he'd been caught a little off his guard. "And she looks so delicate."

Shaw knew what he meant. The _Kite_ was one of the newest zips on the market: smaller, faster, and lighter than the older dirigibles and zeppelins, made out of an aluminum-titanium alloy that was light and virtually indestructible, and she owed her impressive lift to the aether that filled her gasbag. The Brownian Catalyzing Method that mixed volatile hydrogen with the heavier but inert helium to create the incredibly buoyant, noncombustible aether was a recent development in aviation, and what made her the ship she was. Between the metal that made up her frame and skin, and the gas that filled her bag, she could take the weight of two sleek, fully enclosed 35-foot decks below her 100-foot main body without sacrificing lift or too much speed. She had cost him more than a man like him should have been able to pay, if he hadn't had a bit stashed away here and there from some of the work he'd done breaking up smuggling rings, and from taking a few pirate airships as prizes now and again.

He never tired of looking at her.

Shaw handed Corbett the cigarettes and stepped out of the carriage. He jogged up the ramp that went to the hatch cut into the center of the _Kite_'s lowest deck, between her two port gun-doors. Setting his weight to the lever locking the hatch, he pulled. Nothing happened. He frowned, then took a step back and kicked a spot just below the lever. The lever shivered and dropped a fraction of an inch, and Shaw grinned as the hatch swung open.

"You had a percussion lock installed on your airship?" Corbett asked, sounding interested and a little impressed.

"Naw." Shaw tapped the hatch with the knuckles of his right hand, listening to the slightly hollow sound his iron-titanium ring made with satisfaction. "She's only temperamental, as they say." He tapped the hatch again. "She sure is a real beaut, though, ain't she?"

Corbett blinked at the exaggerated drawl, the thickest one Shaw had used so far. "How very American," he said, eyebrows raised. He sounded vaguely delighted despite his expression.

"Yep." Shaw grinned rakishly, then scratched his nose. Dropping the accent, he continued, "They're all cowboys out there, you know. Even in the Air Forces." His eyes crinkled at the corners as he lowered his voice confidingly. "I'm not much for riding. Horses, that is." He grinned wider at Corbett's expression--startled, but knowing at the same time.

"And the cowboys themselves?" It was Corbett's turn to smile now. "You needn't answer." He waved his hand dismissively. "I've read the American intelligence reports."

Shaw's surprise lasted but a fleeting moment, quickly giving way to a pleasant heat. He shook his head, laughing, "Spy_master_, indeed," and gave Corbett an almost-perfect salute before disappearing into the belly of the _Kite._ He was still feeling that heat as he watched Corbett, smiling radiantly, light a cigarette and drive away.

 

**July 16th, 1898 – Thames House, London**

"Captain Shaw, I wasn't expecting you for at least another hour," Corbett said in a voice rough from too much smoke and dust, and too little sleep. He ran his hand through his hair, pausing briefly when he caught his reflection in the small looking glass which he sometimes used in experiments involving light, and which hung over his worktable. His hair stuck up oddly on the left side, and his left cheek appeared to be bisected by a dark red line precisely the right length to have come from the copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ Charles had just returned to him. He squinted at his looking-glass self and attempted to flatten his hair as Shaw spoke.

"The Moroccan government burned the body of the assassin and all his clothes before I could get there. They say they never received our request to preserve the corpse." Shaw removed his cap and dragged his sleeve across his forehead. He looked tired and frustrated. "It's a lie, of course. I found your letter in their Foreign Minister's writing desk. And … Ambassador Wainwright died a few hours before I arrived. None of his household were there for the attack, and his doctors say he never spoke while they attended him."

"Oh, certainly he never spoke before the gangrene set in," Corbett said, turning away from the glass. His hair was clearly a lost cause--as, it seemed, was international cooperation. "What did his servants say? The ones who 'weren't there for the attack'?"

"I only got one to talk. She said she saw a 'demon' on the roof opposite Wainwright's rooms, just an hour before the ruckus. S'posedly he climbed the side of the building, neat as you please, like a cat up a tree."

"And the authorities posit that Wainwright got off the shot that eventually killed the assassin, before," Corbett said slowly, half-closing his eyes to be certain he got the wording verbatim, "'he was savaged and the flesh of his arm and belly torn, as though by a wild beast'?"

"Yeah," Shaw sighed heavily. "It's just like the 'port authority in Cape Town, the one that weasel Leeds recently appointed--Carlisle?--and the merchants there and in Canton. I don't know what kind of a man could do that to another--use a knife on him like that, and then …" He trailed off, not mentioning the way the men's entrails had been pulled from their bodies, possibly while they had still been alive.

"There have been a few strange murders here, too," Corbett said. "Three men who supported the new trade bills going through Parliament, and even one who opposed them, though I'm inclined to believe he was collateral damage, or meant to put us off the real purpose of this butchery. The worst blow was Arthur Fox, who was making progress in securing the necessary treaties and provisions to ensure safe overland air travel between India, Canton, and here. He was killed three nights ago, not very far from here."

"Fox?"

"His throat was ripped out, and he was disemboweled. It really did look as though it was the work of a wild beast--but one with more than animal cunning. The wounds were … precise and … _purposeful_, for all they lacked the clean edges of knife wounds. I've never seen the like." Never the sort to shy away from the bloody aftermath of a violent encounter, he had been troubled by the state of Fox's body. The cruel savagery of the attack and the stench of Fox's intestines, spread out on the road, was something he hadn't been quite prepared for, even after hearing about the Cantonese merchants' murders.

Shaw scrubbed his hand over his face. The action brought some color to his cheeks. "I've seen some pretty rough cuts made by knives, though those were all out on the frontier. Big, serrated blades meant to cut ugly and make stitching and clean healing near impossible. If the blade goes deep enough, you lose chunks of muscle under the torn skin. It looks like the work of claws, before and after the wounds close. But that's not the worst of it, is it."

"No." Lighting the slightly crumpled cigarette he'd found tucked in his oversleeve, Corbett walked over to his desk and leaned against it. It was once again inch-deep in documents and dust, and books had once again begun to spill from the shelves and rise from the floor in uneven, rectangular stalactites and stalagmites mostly made up of novels, atlases, and scientific treatises. He saw Shaw roll his eyes heavenward at the terrible mess, and pressed his lips together to hide the small smile the gesture elicited. There was nothing at all amusing about this growing crisis.

"The first few murders in Canton were easily explained away as burglaries gone wrong, or perhaps killings to redress some insult--private matters which have nothing to do with the security of the realm or our interests abroad." Corbett exhaled heavily, watching the smoke blur Shaw's features and then dissipate, collecting his thoughts before he continued. "They happened close together, geographically and chronologically. But then Carlisle and those other merchants were killed in Cape Town, a week later. Could your zeppelin have made the distance in that time?"

Shaw rocked back on his heels and looked up at the ceiling. Corbett saw his lips moving soundlessly, and then he was shaking his head. "The _Kite_'s one of the fastest zips in the air, and I keep her in good order." He shrugged. "To make a distance like that in a week, I'd have to run her at full speed, without taking the time for a lot of ascents and descents to resupply every thousand miles or so, or to detour around rough weather and unfavorable winds. She'd have to be heavy-loaded in that case, and it'd cut a good twenty miles per hour off her top. The best she'd do then is 'bout sixty. Unless … No." Shaw shook his head decisively. "Not even then. If I caught a fast-moving air current high up, I could run her in that for a few hours, but the boilers'd have to be put out so we could conserve air. The carbon-exchangers could give us an extra hour or two of wholesome air at altitude, maybe, but she'd start to get cold without the boilers running, and the aether'd get heavy. We'd drop back down and lose the high currents, and then we'd lose the time it took to get the boilers steaming again. Thrice--ah, that is, thrice-refined naphtha--catches quick and burns clean and hot, but a boiler left cold can take an hour or more to throw enough steam to get a zip to even half speed. Whatever I tried, I'd fall short of your deadline at least a day. Maybe two, depending on the weather."

"Which leaves us with the chilling conclusion that--"

"Ah, hell. They're organized, whoever they are. And have been for a few months. At least three or four?" Fatigue and frustration made the blue of Shaw's eyes seem darker when Corbett inclined his head in confirmation.

"At the minimum, with the endgame currently unknown. It's something to do with disrupting our trade with the Orient, but is this one of Hir Majesty's subjects trying to arrange things to his greater benefit, or is it a foreign power covertly seeking to disrupt our diplomatic and economic influence abroad? And, most important of all, at what point will this person or these persons be satisfied and call themselves done?" Corbett pinched the butt of his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, thinking furiously. "What documents have you managed to, er, 'liberate' from Carlisle's belongings? Anything which might tell us why he was targeted, beyond the obvious reason of being a conduit for commerce going through the Cape's 'ports? I don't wish to miss anything, no matter how insignificant."

Shaw glared down at his hands, which held his cap. The brim was bent under the force of his grip, the rings on his fingers glinting dully in the watery sunlight that filtered in through Corbett's dusty windows. "There was nothing. His home and his offices in the 'port building had been ransacked, papers and ledgers torn to shreds. Not even personal letters or invitations to social engagements survived."

Corbett frowned. "It's different from the others in that, at least." He drew a pensive, smoke-filled breath and let it out again, slowly. "James Bettany is the agent stationed there, if I'm not mistaken. I'll send him a message asking him to forward any information he has on Carlisle's movements over the last few weeks."

Shaw made an unhappy sound low in his throat. "I didn't think of that. Neither did Bettany. It'll take at least eight, nine days to get here by courier dirigible, unless you want to trust an encrypted telegraph?" Corbett shook his head, still frowning. "Yeah. It's still the easiest way to eavesdrop on your enemies," Shaw agreed. "I did 'liberate' a report made by the local constabulary, but there was nothing left in Carlisle's rooms when I got to them. Just a few pieces of furniture. Bettany said it was difficult to get in right after the murder. Leeds had his people all over the place, day and night, railing about the tragedy of Carlisle's murder and his concern for the safety of Hir Majesty's hand-picked foreign officers."

Corbett wrinkled his nose in reflexive contempt. Leeds was a thoroughly odious man. "Concern for his own safety, more like, and displeasure at having to find another man who will be content to serve as his lap-dog at the 'ports. The number of men who can stomach him, particularly as an overseer, must be few."

Shaw flexed his hand, as though he were grasping the hilt of his knife. "I never saw him while I was there, but I heard about the fuss he was still making, twelve days after it happened." He snorted derisively. "You can take the measure of a man by how he treats those he thinks beneath him."

Corbett narrowed his eyes. "Leeds doesn't show well in that case, does he," he said, not asking.

"No," Shaw agreed. "He made it hard for the local law to do their jobs, and he made it hard for Bettany to come in after. Bettany's seen the constabulary report, though, and he says that's all he came up with, too. I wonder if he'd have got more out of it all if he could have seen Carlisle's rooms sooner."

"We'll have to wait for Bettany's other information to see what Carlisle was up to before he was killed, then. It's a damned shame about his papers! That's the only difference between this murder and the others, and I cannot help but think it must be significant." Corbett took a final smoke-laden breath and cast about for his ash-tray. He was still looking when the whimsical, open-mouthed ceramic frog was thrust under his nose. "Ah!" He leaned back a little in surprise, and almost lost his balance when his backside slipped on the sketches on which he was sitting. They fluttered to the floor, one landing face-up on Shaw's dirty boot.

Shaw bent down to retrieve it, then brought it to his face for a closer look, his eyebrows rising in curiosity. "What's this? It looks a little like the remnant of Horror I brought you back in May."

"Oh? Oh, it is. Before all this trouble with trade and merchants and politicians dying off began, I dissected the remnant."

"So, is it?" Shaw was eyeing the sketch with clear interest. "From a Horror? Because from what I see, it doesn't look like the paw of a monkey washed overboard, or any sea creature I've heard tell of."

"Yes, and no," Corbett said. He hadn't had as much time to look further into Geoff's origins, or the stories surrounding the area where he'd been found, since the trade-related killings had started. "It isn't the sort of thing the more dramatic Horrors are purported to be, at least not from the stories in the broadsides. The bit of skin still on the back of the hand was covered in more hair than one usually sees, but there are men more hirsute than others walking the roads of London--not to mention sailing the seas. You should see Barlow's brother; now there's a proper bear of a man! No, it looks to be the hand of a man, probably a sailor." He glanced at Shaw, who was still looking at the sketch, but clearly listening. Shaw had a good eye; he'd notice if Corbett left something out, just as he'd noticed that the sketch was of the preserved remnant he had brought Corbett two months earlier. "But there was something queer about its proportions. The fingers were short, and the tendons attached strangely, which would have given our sailor rather more flexibility than one would assume. And the nailbeds … Those are wider and longer than you'd expect for a hand with fingers this short, even with as broad as the palm is, but perhaps it's a congenital feature. Whoever the fellow was, he'd have been a regular monkey in the tops and excellent with knots."

"Didn't save him in the storm that likely swept him overboard," Shaw observed drily.

"Quite. So my verdict must be that this is the remnant of a Horror, in that it could easily lend credence to the superstitions. With the frequency and severity of the storms in the area, any ship caught by the weather could inadvertently, er … contribute … evidence to the tales." Corbett refrained from mentioning that no airships or ocean-going vessels in the area had reported any men lost during the time when the remnant had been found. Of course, it was still possible that some ships hadn't yet made landfall anywhere with communication lines open to Britain, but he was more and more inclined to believe that his next priority would be to uncover the mysteries of Morrow's Island once and for all--if not for Charles, then at least to satisfy his own burning curiosity.

Shaw scrubbed his hand over his face again, then handed the paper back to Corbett, who took it carefully and bent down to collect the rest. When he straightened again, Shaw was holding out a thin sheaf of official-looking documents. "The Cape Town constabulary's findings on Carlisle's murder," Shaw said. "I went through them a few times on my way back from Morocco. My own notes and my report on Wainwright are here." He pinched a few pages at the bottom of his scant handful. "I can wait until you're done reading them, in case you've some questions. I don't doubt you'll come up with a round half-dozen things I've forgot, or didn't even know I knew." The right side of Shaw's mouth quirked up in a charming almost-grin.

"No, thank you." Grinning a little himself, Corbett held out his hand, palm up, to receive the papers. "As you've no doubt noticed, my rooms are once again in a state of comfortable chaos. I remember what happened the last time you were left to your own devices while I was otherwise occupied--it's taken me this long to return everything to its proper condition." Corbett reached out and touched Shaw's arm gently, fingertips sliding along supple leather that was pleasantly warmed by the heat of Shaw's body, and lowered his voice. "Go back to the _Kite_. I'm sorry you've had so little time home since you returned from America; I had hoped that you would have at least a few days, if not a fortnight, to spend as you would. As it stands, I'm afraid I will be calling on you by no later than the morning."

Shaw gave an unconcerned shrug, then settled his cap on his head. "The _Kite_'s home. She carries me wherever I may need to go, in service of Monarch and country. It's what I signed on for, and I'd have it no different." His smile was easy, and the sincerity in his words unmistakable.

Corbett admired Shaw's relaxed gait as he walked back to the door with an enviable, unconscious grace, neatly avoiding the book towers sprouting from the shelves and rising from the floor like mushrooms. When he got there, he stopped and turned around, hand resting lightly on the knob, the blue of his eyes bright even in the shadow of his cap's brim. "You know, you never got to take a tour of the _Kite_ before I had to head 'cross the equator. When this is all over, you'll have to come see her in action." Shaw flicked the brim of his cap and grinned warmly as he backed into the hall. The answering glow that Corbett felt low in his stomach took quite a long time to fade, even after he began reading about Carlisle and Wainwright's messy deaths.

 

**July 18th, 1898 – London**

The streets of London were shrouded in an oppressive, murky fog that gave everything the indistinct look of twilight, even in the early hours of the afternoon. Shaw turned up his collar and pulled his cap down, shielding himself from the unseasonable chill in the air, then shoved his hands in his pockets and listened to the sounds of the streets behind him. He'd passed a small group of sailors only a moment earlier and dismissed their darkly muttered insults of "lightfoot," "bleeding airman," and "thieving bastard" as so much noise. None of them looked sufficiently belligerent enough to try and "start a ruckus," as they'd liked to say out West, not even with the security of outnumbering him four to one. Even if they had, Shaw couldn't be sure that Corbett wouldn't suddenly materialize out of the fog and deny him the pleasure of thrashing the lot of them on his own. He snorted in amusement. He knew of his own well-deserved reputation for being unconventional and wildly informal, but he was willing to wager that the Minister was perhaps the most eccentric, unconventional man in Hir Majesty's service. He pulled his hand from his pocket and rubbed his chin. How would he find Corbett today? Asleep on top of--or beneath--a stack of books, or perhaps hidden behind a fortress of dispatches and reports from all the coastal and overland 'ports between here and Canton? Or maybe Corbett would be writing timetables with the help of a calendar, hands and face smudged with dust and ink in a way that should have made him look ridiculous, but instead underscored his singular appeal. The corner of Shaw's mouth quirked upward in a half-smile.

Still lost in his thoughts, he was only a quarter of a mile from Thames House when he heard the queerly fog-muffled sound of feet dragging against stone and a rough, cut-off grunt that made his head snap up. He was already reaching for his knife and drawing his revolver when he heard a boy cry out "Charles!" in a high, thin voice, and then Saunders's own strained and choked gasp of, "No! Run!" came from the alleyway to his right.

Shaw crouched low and set his shoulder to the wall, peering around the corner and into the alley to gauge the number and positions of Geoff and Saunders's attackers. There were two. One was tall and whip-thin, with curiously flexible arms that he was using to restrain Geoff. It looked to be taking all of his strength and leverage, as Geoff was squalling loudly, fighting with an agility and purpose that were surprising in one so small. The other, also tall but considerably broader than the first, had Saunders from behind, one thick arm wrapped around Saunders's throat. He kept jerking Saunders up and back, making it impossible for him to keep his feet. Saunders had begun to turn an alarming shade of purple; his frantic attempts to dig in his heels and throw off his attacker were growing feebler by the second.

Shaw stepped into the alley and fired. Saunders's attacker leapt aside, dropping Saunders as he went, and moving almost too fast for Shaw's eyes to follow. Saunders fell to his knees. He was gasping horribly, but he pulled himself to his feet immediately to stagger back against the alley wall and brace himself against it. The other attacker redoubled his efforts to subdue Geoff and began backing away down the alley, putting the more muscular brute between him and them. Shaw narrowed his eyes. Now that he had a larger target and no human shield to be concerned about, he could shoot to kill properly. As though sensing his thoughts, the man in his sights grinned darkly.

"Come on, then, if you can," he said in a sneering voice. He took a step forward and feinted to the side, once again almost too quick for Shaw to follow. But Shaw'd taken the brute's measure already and compensated for his speed. His bullet tore through the man's chest, an inch or so to the left of where he'd intended to hit, but close enough that heart-blood bloomed in a deep crimson starburst, staining the dingy brown wool of the assassin's coat. Shaw didn't wait for him to fall to the ground, but spun on his heel and leveled the pistol at the man now halfway down the alley, still struggling under his fighting burden.

"Stop him," Saunders exclaimed in a raspy voice. He had pushed himself away from the wall and was looking about wildly, presumably for a weapon. "He means to take Geoff!"

Shaw advanced down the alleyway. Geoff and his captor were far enough away now that their outlines were indistinct in the clinging fog. The boy's strength didn't seem to be flagging; if anything, his efforts to free himself had redoubled.

"Stop that, now," the man holding him hissed. His voice traveled through the fog strangely, sounding much closer than Shaw had thought. Shaw took a few more cautious steps forward, slouching in on himself and placing his feet carefully to disguise the fact that he was moving. Geoff stiffened himself and then went limp, and his captor's grip slipped. Geoff managed to get an arm free and cracked him in the jaw with his elbow. "Damn you!" the man shrieked, his voice still carrying that strange, hissing undertone. He threw himself to the side, and Geoff's head connected with the brick wall.

Saunders was past Shaw in an instant, roaring in fury. Shaw caught him by the collar and hauled him back even as he fired, aiming for the ruffian's knee. And then stared, momentarily transfixed.

The flash of the revolver reflected from Geoff's dull, half-opened eyes--not in a bright, quick burst like it should have, but with the queerly diffused, golden glow of an animal's eyes exposed to strong light in the dark. Several inches above him, his captor's eyes glowed in the same manner, and then the effect was gone. It happened so quickly that Shaw would have thought he'd imagined it, but for having seen something like this once before. The shock of this realization kept him frozen in place for no more than two rapid beats of his heart, but it was enough for Geoff's uncannily fast captor to pull a small white paper envelope from his sleeve and tear it open with his teeth. He inhaled the contents, then dropped the envelope. Black powder fell over Geoff's slack face and the man's arms, which tightened convulsively and then flew wide. Geoff fell to the ground. He lay there, curled into a tight ball.

"Unhand me, damn you," Saunders snarled. He turned on Shaw and tried to yank himself free, but Shaw only shook him.

"Wait!" he snapped. The man shuddered where he stood, then he leapt over Geoff and came straight at them, hissing like an angry 'gator. The bullet track creasing his knee slowed him down not at all that Shaw could see. His limbs were thicker now, covered in ropy muscle, and as he got closer, Shaw could see that the man had gone through some sort of strange and horrifying metamorphosis. His teeth had lengthened until they were fangs, fairly bristling from his mouth. His skin looked like it was covered with scales, and his hands now boasted long, cruel-looking claws that sliced through the air. The fog parted in their wake, giving Shaw a clearer look at his bestial countenance, and then the foul creature was nearly upon him.

Shaw shoved Saunders behind him and dropped into a crouch. He'd turned his knife so the blade lay flat along his forearm to grab Saunders, and now he flipped it back over, into a fighting hold. The beast-man in front of him hissed again, then lunged forward, claws reaching. Shaw fired, and the creature staggered back with a small, bloody hole in its side. He fired again as it leapt for him once more, missing this time as it twisted aside, impossibly fast and flexible. One of its claws caught his revolver and tore it from his grasp. Shaw followed, knife flashing as he slashed at the thing's arm, face, and side. He managed to get in a punch, tearing off a few scales with one of his iron-titanium rings when the blow landed. The beast-man howled and thrust him away, then leapt at him before he could fully regain his balance. Shaw crossed his arms and threw them up to protect his face even as he stepped back, seeking surer footing. But the terrible weight and tearing claws he was expecting never landed.

"Geoff!" Saunders cried. Shaw spared him a glance, then followed his gaze. Geoff--or something that looked a little like Geoff--was tearing at the beast-man. His hair was now long and shaggy, and his ears had grown, standing taller and coming to points. His fingers had elongated and were now tipped with vicious-looking claws, and he, too, had grown fangs. The pupils of his eyes were vertical slits, like a cat's or a snake's, but the irises retained the rich golden color of the boy's eyes. And he was _quick_\--so quick that Shaw had to register all of these changes in an eyeblink as Geoff turned to growl menacingly at them, before catching the beast-man around the waist and throwing him bodily into the bricks. Shaw cast about for his revolver, sighting it near Saunders's foot. He moved slowly, keeping his eyes on the furious fight before him, and bent down to retrieve the gun when it looked like his movement was going unnoticed. His fingers touched the wooden grip, and suddenly the sound of the fight before them dropped away.

Geoff stood there, licking blood from his claws and growling. His eyes flicked over to the crumpled heap that was the scaled beast-man, and then to the revolver that Shaw held loosely in his hand. Shaw was still crouched low, and now he was almost afraid to move.

"Geoff." Saunders took a step forward, hand out, but Geoff growled at him.

"Stay back, Saunders. I don't think he knows you," Shaw said quietly, "and I don't know what he might do."

"Shut up," Saunders hissed. "He's still Geoff. He's only a ridiculous little monkey of a boy." He took another step forward, hand still outstretched, and almost faster than Shaw's eyes could follow, Geoff lashed out and caught the edge of his wrist with a claw. Saunders didn't flinch. "You silly, wretched creature. What have you done?" he said softly. Geoff cocked his head and looked at Saunders's blood on his claw and fingertip, then reached out again, more gently this time, and touched Saunders's bloody hand.

"Charles," he said in a low, rough voice. He blinked as though confused, and then he shuddered. His eyes glazed over and his pupils lost their vertical cast, and he swayed on his feet. Saunders caught him before he fell to the ground, apparently not caring about the ugly gash on his wrist. Shaw sheathed his knife and quickly reloaded his revolver, eyes scanning the fog to see if any more horrors--or Horrors--lurked nearby.

"Come on," he whispered, touching Saunders's shoulder. "Give him to me; I'll carry him to Corbett's, and we can figure out what's going on and why you were attacked."

"No, I'll carry him," Saunders snapped, his voice still hoarse from the abuse his throat had taken. He stood carefully, Geoff still and limp in his arms. "We were on our way to see Thierry in any case, to--"

There was a soft dragging sound off to the side, and Shaw spun, revolver ready. He cursed at himself. The scaled assassin's body was gone, as was the body of man he'd shot. He signaled for Saunders to stay back and approached the bloodied ground where the beast-creature had lain, and saw that despite all appearances, the thing had lived. It had likely been waiting for their attention to be divided, and then seized its chance to sneak away, taking the body of its fellow with it. There would be no evidence of the brutes in this attack, just as there had been no evidence in the other attacks. Unless …

Shaw followed the alley wall, eyes scanning the ground until he found the small, torn envelope. It had been trampled a little, but there was still some of the black powder inside. He folded the envelope over on itself and tucked it carefully into one of his trenchcoat's inner pockets.

"All right. Let's go," he said, gesturing with his revolver. He cast a last look over his shoulder. As much as he wanted to follow the thing that had attacked them, getting Geoff and Saunders to safety was far more important. And anyway, he thought that now maybe he had enough information that he and Corbett would be able to solve the puzzle handily. He'd get another crack at the creature, or at others like it, if he had anything to say in the matter.

 

"Corbett!" Shaw's urgent voice snapped him out of his reverie. Corbett looked up, frowning, and then dropped his report.

"Good lord, what's happened? Charles--?"

"We were attacked," Charles said heavily, in an oddly raspy voice. He collapsed into the chair that Shaw had quickly cleared for him, Geoff still in his arms. Corbett stood up at once and came around the desk, not even cursing when he trod on a sharp clockwork gear in his stocking feet. "Two men came for us as we were walking here to see you," Charles continued, shaking his head. "We ought to have taken a motor carriage, but I'll do anything to tire him out before the evening. Especially when I have an engagement."

Corbett nodded, only half listening, as he laid his fingers against Geoff's cheek and then took up his wrist, counting silently. "He's well. This seems to me like a very deep sleep. Was he hurt?"

"One of the bastards knocked his head against the wall, but I don't think that's the trouble," Shaw said slowly. "He--they were attacked by Horrors."

Corbett was patting at the pockets in his dressing gown, looking for a handkerchief to tie up the gash on Charles's wrist. He had just given up on the dressing gown and was investigating the contents of his waistcoat's pockets when Shaw's words registered.

"Yeah. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I didn't see how they were set on, but I saw one of them holding Geoff back, and the other trying to strangle Saunders here. I shot that one, but the other …" Shaw pushed his cap back and blew out a heavy breath. "They looked like men, the pair of 'em, if a little odd. The one who had Geoff had queer arms; they bent in strange ways. And his eyes …" Shaw hesitated, then continued. Corbett raised an eyebrow, but let it pass. He would ask questions in a moment. "Anyway, he bounced Geoff's head off the wall, and then before we could move or I could get off a shot, he tore open this little packet--" Shaw produced a dirty, mangled envelope of the sort that one could procure at the chemist's, and handed it over; Corbett took it and unfolded it to see the powder left inside as Shaw continued, "--and breathed in the powder. And then he … _changed._ Into a Horror. He hissed like a 'gator from a Florida swamp, and his teeth turned into fangs. His skin grew scales, like a snake's." Shaw glanced at Charles, then back at Corbett.

"At first, I couldn't figure out why anyone would be after Saunders here. He supported Fox's efforts and the trade bills, right?" Charles nodded in affirmation. "But you have little influence over the 'ports or tariffs, or anything else to do with the trade routes, if I'm not mistaken," Shaw continued, looking at Charles.

"You have the right of it; I have little enough in common with the men who've been recently murdered," Charles agreed. "But they weren't after me. They meant to take Geoff. They only set themselves on me when I wouldn't let them take him."

"Geoff." Corbett looked down at the boy in Charles's arms, and then at Charles. His face was pale, and the corners of his mouth were tight, as though from pain.

"He's a Horror," Shaw said. He nodded at the crumpled packet still in Corbett's hand. "He breathed in some of that powder, and he changed, just like the other one. And he fought like a demon."

"Are you certain?" Corbett already knew that the likelihood of Geoff being at least connected to the creator of the Horrors, or even being a Horror himself, was almost certain. But if the powder was what turned someone into a Horror, rather than being the catalyst for the change …

"Yeah. When I shot at the thing holding him, his eyes glowed in the flash. Like a critter at night, when it catches the edge of naphtha light or torchlight. The thing's eyes glowed, too. Before it changed. Corbett," Shaw said, his voice hard, "what's going on? The assassins who killed Carlisle and Wainwright, all those merchants--they were Horrors, weren't they?"

"It seems as though they must have been," Corbett agreed. He was thinking furiously. They knew that the Horrors were real, now, and that they could be disguised as men until the need for their hidden strength arose. They knew that whoever was connected to the Horrors had an interest in suppressing the shorter, overland trade routes between Britain and the Orient. He looked down at the packet. "Where are the corpses? I'll send someone to retrieve them immediately."

Shaw rocked back on his heels. "They're gone. The one that Geoff fought was playing 'possum--ah, feigning death--and while we had our hands full making sure Geoff wasn't going to slice us to ribbons or fall down dead himself, it managed to get up and take itself and the other one away." Shaw glanced over at Geoff, and Corbett followed his gaze. The boy was still sleeping soundly in Charles's arms. Charles's face was bleak as he listened.

"Thierry, these creatures could be anywhere. They could come for him again at any time. I don't know what they want with him, but whoever they are, whoever is behind them--they will not have him. I will not allow him to be taken!" Charles spoke softly, but there was a dangerous edge in his voice.

"I don't know that you'll be safe here," Corbett said quietly. "And I think that I--that we--" he looked at Shaw, gauging his mood, "must go to Morrow's Island."

Shaw pulled his cap down. "There's room enough on the _Kite_ for a few passengers. If I c'n carry that snake Leeds and his …" Corbett looked up, a little startled, as Shaw trailed off.

"Shaw?" Corbett reached out and touched Shaw's arm. Shaw shook him off.

"Leeds," he murmured. "When I saw Geoff's--and the assassin's--eyes glowing, it reminded me of Nicholas Leeds. We were on the _Kite_, before Leeds kept him to his quarters. It was night, so the gennys--the, ah, static discharge generators--were running to keep the 'lectric candles in the hall lit. Nicholas was walking in front of me, and when Leeds called to him from behind us and he turned, his eyes caught the light just right. Leeds might've seen it himself; that could be why he forbade Nicholas and his servants to come out of their rooms."

"Leeds," Corbett echoed. _"Leeds._ Of course! Assassinate the most influential men along the trade routes that bypass the Cape, which he now controls; quash the possibility of the overland air routes indefinitely so everything must continue through the Cape … With that sort of insidiously growing power, in five to eight years, he would control all. He could dictate virtually all terms for trade between the realm and the Orient, and thus hold the preponderance of Britain's influence in China, India, and Japan. Those in Parliament not already under his sway would fall to bribery and the sheer necessity of remaining in his good graces, or be murdered outright in their homes. There's little end to what he could do. He might even buy his way into the Prime Minister's seat!"

"What of Carlisle?" Charles asked. Corbett blinked down at him. "Carlisle was one of Leeds's men, hand-picked if I remember the appointment correctly."

"Carlisle must have discovered something, something which Leeds couldn't allow to stand. His papers were destroyed when he was killed. Perhaps he found out about the Horrors." Corbett tapped his lip absentmindedly, thinking through the possibilities, then sniffed at the queer, musty odor rising from his fingertips.

"Corbett, the powder!" Shaw exclaimed, grabbing his wrist and pulling his hand away from his face.

"Thierry, you ass!" Charles cried at the same moment.

"Oh," Corbett said apologetically. He sneezed, then shuddered at the queer feeling running down his spine. "Ah. This is quite strange." He looked at Shaw, who'd taken a half-step back and was standing in a relaxed, fight-ready position. "I'm perfectly well, Shaw. I'm not a Horror, so I cannot think this will cause any sort of terrible metamorphosis. Though I must say that everything seems a little, er, sharper now." He breathed deeply through his nose, and closed his eyes.

"What're you doing?" Shaw asked. The tension in his voice was almost perfectly masked by his normal, studied casualness, but Corbett could suddenly hear the difference clearly, without any effort.

"Remarkable," he said. "Charles, you smell frightfully of blood. And Geoff--he smells human, like we do, but there's something else …" Corbett took another deep breath and held it for a moment before speaking again. "Yes, a faintly animal musk. I wonder how Leeds manages it. He must start with men--or sometimes boys, like Geoff and Nicholas--and incorporate the animal tissues somehow." Shaw turned his head to look at Charles; Corbett could hear it.

"And you, Captain," Corbett continued, smiling a little, "I can hear you turning your head." Shaw went still. Corbett chuckled delightedly, though he did stop to think that he was enjoying himself perhaps a bit too much. He inhaled again, breathing in Shaw's scent. Shaw smelled of sweat and leather, and the tang of naphtha, with a little of something else over it all: the damp, smoky odor of the London fog. He shuddered again as the queer feeling ran down his spine once more, followed by the gentle bloom of the heat he had come to associate with Shaw's proximity. He inhaled one last time, trying to hold on to it, but the smell was fading as he breathed it in again. Corbett opened his eyes and frowned, then leaned against his desk.

"Are you all right?" Shaw asked. He was still standing at the ready. Corbett nodded, then gripped the edge of the desk tightly. The motion had left him feeling a little dazed, and he could feel the throb of a headache beginning just behind his eyes.

"Yes, I believe so. The powder appears to enhance the senses for a short while. Sounds and scents were so clear …" He raised his hand to rub at his forehead, but started when Shaw took his wrist firmly.

"The powder. You still have it in your hand," Shaw said. He plucked the envelope from Corbett's fingers and pulled a rumpled handkerchief from one of his pockets, rubbing at Corbett's hand until it was pink, and only ink stains remained.

"Ah, thank you," Corbett said. "Might I trouble you to call Barlow once you've taken care of the packet? I don't want you leaving here without an escort, Charles, and you'll need some things if you're to come along with us."

"I'm not leaving," Charles said. "Barlow can send a runner for a few of my things, and for some of Geoff's. I won't leave him here to wake on his own, and I cannot take him with me."

"I see," Corbett said. "Then I should clear some space on the bed for him for now, and we should see to that cut on your wrist. It looks painful, and you wouldn't want to risk infection."

"I'll take care of it," Shaw said. "You ought to make a list of the things you'll need from here. And you'll need to dress properly," he added as he walked to the door. He mumbled something, but Corbett didn't quite catch it. Charles might have, though, since he let out a bark of exhausted laughter.

"Oh?" Corbett glanced down at himself. The dressing gown wasn't entirely disgraceful, and his stockings had fewer than four holes between them. "Shoes, of course," he acknowledged.

"It's a start," Shaw agreed, looking over his shoulder, and then he stuck his head out into the hallway and shouted for Barlow.

 

Shaw closed his cabin door with his boot-heel and latched it with an absent nudge of his elbow. His cabin was in order, just as he had left it: hammock and blankets rolled and stowed on top of his chest, which was strapped tightly in its corner; desktop clean and the drawers all latched tightly; the two simple, straight-backed chairs stacked neatly atop one another and secured in their hooks on the far wall; and--he opened the door of the slim wardrobe built into the bulkhead--his last five bottles of tequila undisturbed. He had just dropped his cap on the wardrobe's shelf when a sharp knock sounded at the door.

"Come in," he called. He took off his trenchcoat and hung it under his cap.

"Captain." Corbett's polite voice came from behind him as he unbuckled his gunbelt. He hung it next to the trenchcoat and bent at the waist to unpick the knots securing the Bowie knife to his thigh.

"How are they?" Shaw hung the knife and its sheath in the wardrobe, and turned around to see Corbett standing just inside the door. His eyes were clear behind the lenses of his spectacles; the slightly dazed look that had been in them as they'd prepared to move everyone to the _Kite_ was finally gone. The tight lines around his eyes and mouth had relaxed as well, and he had removed the aviator's trenchcoat he'd been wearing when they'd arrived. Shaw presumed that he'd left it in his cabin before heading up here. He could understand why; with the boilers running and the _Kite_ just underway, the heated air rushing through the pipes framing the gasbag and giving the zip extra lift made the decks below quite cozy. At least, until they hit the higher altitudes, which wouldn't be for another hour or so.

"Perfectly well. Geoff woke briefly, but he seems to have no memory of his … change, or of what occurred in the alley. He's fallen back asleep, and Charles looked to do the same when I left." Shaw lifted the chairs from their place on the wall and set them down in front of his desk, facing each other, as Corbett spoke. He fell into his gratefully, and gestured for Corbett to do the same.

"I'm glad to hear it. I meant to look in on them myself, but there was a problem with the navi-comp, and Babbage needed a hand." Shaw raised a fist and pantomimed bashing the top of the blasted machine.

"Navi--? Ah, navigation computer," Corbett murmured, nodding. "The logic machine you use to compute vectors, velocities, and altitudes to fine-tune your headings, I presume." He folded his hands. "I've always found it faster to do the calculations in my head. Computers are unwieldy things; the slightest bit of dust fouls their clockwork, and the counting pins and logic springs go all agley."

"Temperamental," Shaw agreed. He flipped a latch on one of the bottom-most drawers of his desk and pulled out a small glass, then poured some of the tequila from his flask into it and handed it to Corbett. Corbett's fingers touched his, lingering a little longer than was necessary, and the gentle friction of Corbett's callused fingertips against his knuckles made Shaw smile. He lifted his flask in salute. "Welcome to the Heavenly Army, Minister Corbett," he said, and swallowed. The heat from the tequila hit his stomach almost at once. It mixed pleasantly with the warmth of his appreciation for the way the electric candle-light caressed the curve of Corbett's cheek.

"Thank you, Captain." Corbett drank the tequila in two long, slow swallows, tilting his head back a little to catch the last few drops. He licked his lips and smiled. "My, that's quite warming," he sighed. He blinked at Shaw, who privately agreed. He was already feeling quite a bit warmer.

"Tequila," Shaw said. He leaned forward to pour a little more into Corbett's glass, and heard Corbett's soft intake of breath.

"Ah," Corbett sighed again, "thank you." He took another sip, eyes on Shaw the whole time, then put the glass down. Shaw watched as Corbett began patting himself down for a cigarette, his long, ink-stained fingers dipping into his pockets and sliding into his waistcoat, then skimming down his thigh. Shaw saw the dismay in Corbett's eyes when he remembered that he was wearing neither his printer's apron nor his oversleeves. "I suppose," Corbett said a little sadly, "that it's just as well I've forgot my apron and my spare cigarettes. One ought not to smoke on a zeppelin."

"No, it's all right," Shaw assured him. He got up and went to the double-paned, India rubber-sealed porthole cut into the wall opposite the door. "We won't reach 2,500 feet for about an hour, and anyway, it's plenty warm in here for now." Shaw grinned as he carefully unlatched the window and propped it open a little. Cool, moist air rushed in, smelling faintly of the ocean. "The aether's noncombustible, and there's nothing between here and the gasbag to catch fire in any case." He went to his wardrobe next, and pulled Corbett's tobacco pouch, his rolling papers, and naphtha lighter from one of his trenchcoat's pockets. Corbett made a small noise of delight as Shaw put them on the desk and sat down again.

"I found them in your apron. Thought you'd miss 'em if I didn't bring 'em, since you were leaving the apron behind." Shaw rested a fingertip on the hinge of the rolling papers' box. "May I?"

"Of course," Corbett nodded in invitation, frowning a little, "though I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't." Shaw grinned lazily. "I just like the smell of your tobacco." He inhaled deeply as he opened the pouch and began rolling the cigarette. He could feel Corbett staring at him, the weight of his gaze a palpable thing. It began to make him feel very warm, and when he licked the edge of the paper to seal it, he heard Corbett let out a soft, sighing breath. Shaw looked up, then nearly dropped the cigarette. Corbett was _watching_ him, the look in his eyes one that Shaw could only interpret as desire. The heat of it made Shaw's skin tingle, and he shifted in his chair as he felt himself responding, his trousers suddenly becoming more constricting.

"Corbett?" Shaw began. He felt a little breathless.

"Yes?" Corbett leaned forward and took the cigarette from him. He sounded a little breathless himself as he dropped it on the desk.

"Never mind," Shaw mumbled, and leaned forward to meet Corbett's kiss halfway. Corbett's lips were slightly chapped, and thus a little rough, but Shaw could taste tequila and the sweet, earthy spice of Corbett's tobacco as their tongues met and curled together. He grabbed Corbett's shirtfront, preparing to haul him into his lap, but Corbett was already there, straddling his thighs and reaching down between them, pressing his palm against the rising swell of Shaw's erection. Shaw groaned. His hips jerked upward, and he clutched at Corbett's waist, yanking him closer.

"Ah!" Corbett gasped. The nails of his left hand dug into Shaw's shoulder, and Shaw shivered at the sharp jolt it sent through him, like the sizzling discharge from a static generator. He wanted to lay his hands on Corbett's skin, and to feel Corbett's hands on him, to feel the heat of him with nothing between them. He tugged Corbett's shirt from the waistband of his trousers and began undoing the buttons on his waistcoat. From there it was only seconds to lay bare Corbett's chest and stomach. The spymaster's skin was hot beneath Shaw's hands and lips, tasting of salt and smoke, and he gasped, arching into Shaw's palms when the iron-titanium rings caught against the raised nubs of his nipples. Shaw's breathing grew ragged, and he watched hungrily as Corbett lowered his hands, busying himself with the business of undoing first Shaw's trousers, and then his own. The cool air in the cabin made him shiver, and then he was enveloped in the delicious heat of Corbett's fingers.

Shaw bit back a groan as Corbett took him firmly in hand, teasing back his foreskin and spreading the clear fluid over the swollen head of his cock with his thumb. It wasn't enough; Shaw wanted more--more of Corbett's heat, his skin, his touch. He flexed his hips upward, pushing insistently into Corbett's fist, and then Corbett was pressing their erections together, dragging his rough fingertips up their lengths and back down again in a steady rhythm.

Shaw could only breathe hoarsely, clutching Corbett's hips with a bruising strength as they thrust against each other. The friction was almost maddening, and Corbett's firm caresses only heightened the slow, burning pleasure Shaw could feel building deep inside him.

"Corbett--" Shaw gasped. "Corbett, I--"

"Nnh--!"

Corbett came with his back arched, one hand wrapped around their cocks, the other gripping Shaw's shoulder. He kept his gaze on Shaw until the last second, then threw his head back and let out a low, soft moan that made Shaw tighten his hold involuntarily. He was dizzy with the strength of his wanting, with the hot ache in his belly and the savage throbbing in his groin. He felt for a moment that he couldn't move for the weight of it all--that he could only sit there, fingers trembling against Corbett's sweaty skin. Shaw felt Corbett take a few panting breaths, and then Corbett relaxed, tilting his head down to lick into his mouth for a slow, sultry kiss. Shaw shuddered as Corbett's hand began to move again, skimming up and down his heated flesh almost playfully, stroking and squeezing. His fingers were slick with his spend, sliding easily, and his tongue was in Shaw's mouth. It muffled Shaw's cry as a blazing ecstasy rushed through him and wrenched his release from him, his hips rocking upward in tiny, almost-desperate movements as Corbett's sure touches wrung him dry. He collapsed backward with a last gasp of pleasure, and then sat there bonelessly, chest heaving.

"Ah," Corbett sighed against the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah," Shaw agreed. He languidly slid his hands up Corbett's hot, sweat-damp back, dragging his nails up either side of Corbett's spine. Corbett shivered and leaned back into his touch, watching him with heavy-lidded eyes.

"So," Shaw began when he'd finally caught his breath again. He glanced over at the corner where his hammock was stowed. Corbett followed his gaze and frowned thoughtfully. "Have you ever--"

"In a hammock?" Corbett shook his head. "I do believe this will be the first time." He removed his spectacles and set them carefully on the desk, next to his abandoned cigarette-making materials.

Shaw grinned.

 

**July 25th, 1898 – Lat. -14 degrees, 0 minutes, 52 seconds; Long. 6 degrees, 40 minutes, 47 seconds**

Corbett leaned against the jagged boulder and loosened his sword in its sheath, watching as Shaw climbed back down the elaborate metal latticework holding the _Silver Kite_ above the island's rocky, uneven ground. He moved quickly, loose-limbed and agile, and Corbett allowed himself a small moment of appreciation at the sight before turning his thoughts to the more pressing matters of their present circumstances. A few of the landing frame's thin metal struts were bent, a consequence of their rapid descent through the unnatural thunderstorm that encircled the island and several miles of its surrounding waters. He was grateful that the _Kite_, bless her, was made out of a high-resistance alloy and well-insulated, and therefore not as vulnerable to the sizzling arcs of lightning that had stretched menacingly from ground to sky as other airships would have been.

He squinted up at the dark heavens, then averted his eyes as another bright, jagged streak of blue-white energy struck furiously at the clouds.

"It's not natural, is it," Shaw said as he approached. The collar of his trenchcoat was turned up and his cap pulled down, protecting most of his face from the wind that flung sharp bits of gravel up from the ground.

"No. The strikes are too regular; they hit in a pattern. I thought as much as we were coming in, but now we're on the ground, I can see it more clearly. I'm not certain how he has achieved the effect, but I can posit that it has something to do with static discharge generators built on a scale of which we've never before conceived."

"Static gennys that big would be near impossible to power constantly. Nobody's ever done it before. Hell, you could wire the whole of London and then some for 'lectric with power like this." Shaw was frowning at the black clouds overhead, unflinching when yet another bolt of lightning streaked up into the sky, right on schedule.

"Ah, but he has a powerful source of energy to build up the static charge. The currents surrounding this island would be enough, but if he also harnessed the winds created by the initial discharges to power further discharges …" Corbett was grudgingly impressed. The feeling was irksome. "It's as close to a perpetual motion machine as anyone has ever got--in a manner of speaking."

Shaw kicked at a rock, which jumped across the ground and bounced off Corbett's boulder at an uncanny angle. "We're going to have to find it and shut it down before we can leave this damned place. The _Kite_ can handle a rapid descent just fine, but her fastest ascent won't get us clear of the winds quick enough to get off the island, let alone up and through the stormclouds. We'll wreck for sure, and become more fuel for the Horror tales."

"From what I can see of the strikes," Corbett said slowly, thinking in the slight pauses between his words, "I believe there is a central generator linked to several smaller generators, somewhere in that direction." He waved northward. "If we can find that central generator and disable it, we may be able to take the lot of them off-circuit with one blow. At most, we shall have to disable two, I think. Alas, the rub is that the generators will likely be set far from Leeds's stronghold, wherever that may be."

"I don't want to stand on this rock any longer than I need to," Shaw said with some heat. "I mislike the feel of this place. And it isn't just the static making my skin creep. It feels like LeClerq and that unnatural army of golems all over again, only worse."

Corbett frowned in agreement. The strange charge in the air made the hairs on the back of his neck rise, but there was a more sinister feel about this place than he'd expected, and he had had few illusions about what they might find here. After Shaw had given him a more thorough description of the Horrors he, Charles, and Geoff had encountered, he was certain that poor William Morrow had exaggerated what he'd seen on this island not a whit. The thought was troubling, to say the least.

"Right." Shaw pushed the brim of his cap up a bit, and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Smitty," he called, turning to face the _Kite_ "Smitty, come down here!" He lowered his hands, then appeared to think better of it and raised them again to shout, "And Babbage! The pair of you, on the double, if you please."

Corbett raised his eyebrows in interest as Shaw's taciturn engineer swung down from the landing frame, Babbage close on his heels.

"Cap'n." Babbage touched the brim of his cap briefly, one eye on the _Kite_. Smitty only nodded once, as spare in his movements as he was with words.

"We can't get her in the air with this weather," Shaw said. "Someone's going to have to find the lightning gennys and do a proper job on 'em while the rest guard the _Kite_ and our passengers. Corbett'n I're going to do a little reconnaissance, maybe catch us a weasel if he's here." Shaw's smile had an edge to it, and he'd slipped into his drawl. Corbett felt his own lips curving upward in a somewhat optimistic anticipation, though he thought it unlikely that Leeds would be conscious of his plans having been discovered. He was willing to be satisfied with uncovering the methods through which the Horrors were created, and anything which might give him further information on the scope and breadth of Leeds's plans for usurping the Oriental trade routes.

"Smitty," Shaw continued, "I want you to take O'Malley and Fellowes, and whatever tools and ordnance you think you might need, to the gennys. Corbett says they're like to be north of here." Smitty glanced at Corbett, then to the north of the island, whence the majority of the lightning strikes were coming. He nodded again.

"I'll hold the _Kite_," Babbage said. "The rest of us can handle her fine."

"Use her guns if you need to, and see that each man has a repeating rifle and a full complement of whatever ordnance is left after Smitty picks it over."

"What of you, Cap'n? You and the Minister--"

"Thank you, Babbage, but I've brought several things which I believe will suffice. You needn't stint yourselves, nor Smitty." Corbett patted his sides, fingering the small, irregular lumps and bumps lining the inside of his trenchcoat, and ran over the catalogue of items in his mind, making certain that he'd thought to bring the more useful gadgets they might conceivably require on their exploration of Leeds's stronghold.

"Damn it, what's he doing?" Shaw muttered, bringing Corbett out of his mental exercises. Corbett looked around, then thinned his lips in mild dismay. Charles was climbing down the landing frame, rather more dexterously than Corbett would have credited; Geoff had already reached the ground and was looking up at Charles anxiously. "Hey! Saunders! What in hell d'you think you're doing?" Shaw bellowed as Charles dropped the last few feet to the ground. Charles ignored him and stalked across the intervening space to stand before them, Geoff just behind him and holding onto the hem of his coat. He looked a little as though he were afraid Charles might get lost, or leave him behind.

"Charles," Corbett began carefully, taking in the set of his shoulders, the pistols at his hips, and the hard look in his eyes, "you and Geoff really ought--"

"I will not," Charles snapped. "I can shoot, and I can fight well enough when the pistols fail me." He turned a glare on Shaw, who had snorted skeptically at this last, then looked away, in clear dismissal. "I will see this finished, Thierry. If not by my hand, then by yours. Or his," he added a little grudgingly, flicking a glance at Shaw. Shaw was glaring at the pistols.

"Where'd you get those?" he asked, pointing to the pistol at Charles's left hip.

Babbage cleared his throat, then shrugged sheepishly. "You never said not to, Cap'n."

Shaw's withering look, Corbett thought privately, quite rivaled one of Charles's best, and then he spoke quickly, before much more time could be lost in dealing with trivialities.

"We must get going. I don't wish to be anywhere but back on the _Kite_ when night falls, preferably in the air and on our way back to England."

"Right," Shaw said. His tone was resigned. "Then at least leave Geoff here, Saunders. This is no place for a boy."

"No!" Geoff's angry shout nearly drowned out Shaw's last words. "I won't stay. I won't!" Charles winced almost imperceptibly. This once, it looked like he agreed with Shaw, though Corbett knew he wouldn't admit as much.

"If you think can compel him to stay here, Captain," said Charles, his diction very precise, "I invite you to do so. Or, at the very least, you are welcome to try. He will be out of any room in which he is put and after us, in less than a quarter of an hour. In that case, I prefer to have him where I might keep an eye on him--where we all might keep an eye on him." He stood with his back straight, his face impassive. While Charles would clearly prefer that Geoff remain quietly aboard the _Kite_, he also clearly knew the futility of trying to enforce as much, and would thus do the next best thing. Furthermore, now that Charles was decided, he was as good as immovable, as Corbett knew from experience. He thought quickly.

"I think it likely he will prove an asset." Corbett gave Charles a half-nod and turned to address Shaw. "He is only lately come from this island--"

"And remembers nothing, from what you've said," Shaw protested, though with little real conviction. Corbett knew that he'd come to see Geoff as the force of nature he was, and Charles as implacable as any royal scion standing on his dignity--when the occasion suited him.

"Perhaps it is his instincts we shall have to rely on, then, and not his human memory," Corbett said. "Despite having no clear recollection of this place, he may still recall with his unconscious mind things about the island's geography and native dangers that we haven't the time to puzzle through ourselves. But enough; we must go if we're to make use of what light is left to us. If the generators are to the north, then I think we must look to either the west or the east for Leeds's stronghold."

"It's that way," Geoff said quietly, pointing southwest. His golden eyes were wide and solemn, and with every flash of lightning, they glowed an eerie, shimmering yellow. Corbett glanced at Shaw, knowing he need not ask aloud.

"All right," Shaw agreed grudgingly. He pushed up the brim of his cap and rubbed his forehead before settling the cap in place once again. "Smitty--"

"Sir," the engineer nodded, and turned on his heel. He jogged back to the _Kite_, signaling the figures standing in the open hatchway as he went.

"Babbage," Shaw said, "the moment the winds die down--"

"Oh, aye. We'll be airborne."

"Find Smitty first, if he's not back by the time the boilers are steaming. Then come for us. I've got the signal flares." Shaw tapped a pocket on his trenchcoat. "Come in hot on red, stand by the guns on green."

"Cap'n." Babbage touched the brim of his cap in salute, nodded respectfully to Corbett, then smiled at Charles and Geoff before making double-time back to the _Kite_.

"And not a mark on her, Babbage! You hear?" Shaw called after him. Babbage waved a hand dismissively without looking back.

"Right." Shaw adjusted his cap once more, then cast a last glance at the _Silver Kite_. When he turned back to face Corbett, his expression was one of grim readiness.

"Southwest, gentlemen," Corbett said. His sword was a welcome weight at his side. "Shaw, you've the rear guard."

 

Shaw tucked himself more securely into his corner, watching Corbett make his careful way across the wide antechamber. He could hear Saunders breathing a few paces behind him; Geoff made no sound, though he could see the faint glow of the boy's eyes in the sliver of 'lectric candlelight that penetrated the darkness when he looked over his shoulder. After a walk of over an hour, Geoff had led them unerringly to a jagged rock wall that rose from the center of the island and into which a heavy iron door was set. The clearing before the door was sizable--large enough for a small, sleek dirigible, half the size of the _Kite_, to stand in a docking cradle. The air in the clearing had been still, protected from the howling tempest that tore across the rest of the island by the rock wall, and the faint tang of thrice vapor had tickled the back of Shaw's throat when he took a deep breath. The dirigible was recently arrived.

They had emerged, one at a time, from the cramped, natural fissure that ran from an opening behind a stand of jagged boulders some distance away from Leeds's front door, to one of the lair's lower levels. Now they were out of the rock, the eerie roar of the wind outside was gone, only to be replaced by a deeper, more resonant ululation that rose and fell like the wails of mourners. Shaw crossed the stone floor in a few long, silent strides, stretching his legs to eat up the yards until his back was pressed against the other end of the thick wooden door where Corbett now stood. The spymaster had taken a small metal tube from his trenchcoat and shaken it out. It had curled itself into something like a hearing trumpet, and he was leaning against the door, ear to one end of the tube, and making ticking-off motions with his fingers. He shook the tube again, and it snapped back into a thin, straight metal cylinder that he dropped into a pocket.

"I make near a dozen creatures in the room beyond us. And I can hear something else--the faint hum of some clockwork apparatus, if I'm not much mistaken."

"Leeds?" Shaw glanced back towards the far wall, where Geoff and Saunders were waiting. Geoff's eyes were wide and his color high, but he stood resolute at Saunders's side. Saunders had a hand on one of his pistols; the other was firm on Geoff's shoulder.

"There are men--proper men, at least for now--in there; I cannot tell how many. Four? Five? But I heard no voice that sounded like Leeds. He may be elsewhere in this labyrinth, or he may be beyond the room on the other side of this door, where the apparatus must be. Shaw--" Corbett pushed his spectacles up his nose, then tugged at the front of his trenchcoat. The leather from his collar to his navel gaped open a little, and he slipped his hands inside it. "--the door, if you would?"

Shaw grasped the iron door handle and gave a mighty pull, heaving the door open. And then he cursed, biting back an epithet and the sharp, hot surge of frustration that shot through him as Corbett eeled through the opening and into the dangerous room beyond. The pitch of howls no longer muffled by thick wood rose, punctuated by the sharp sound of shattering glass. Shaw heaved on the door again, then shoved his own way in, reaching for his revolver and his knife as he burst into the room.

The chamber was huge, as wide as any ballroom in a palace. A dozen terrifying creatures, standing upright like men but scaled and furred and clawed like leopards, 'gators, hyenas, and other things too grotesquely jumbled to identify, snapped and snarled at the ends of thick chains that fastened to iron shackles at their wrists. The chains, bolted into the stone of the chamber walls, were being strained to their limits. At the far end of the chamber, six men who moved a little queerly--Horrors of the sort that had set upon Geoff and Saunders, and different from those chained to the walls--were reaching into their sleeves and their pockets. Corbett flung a handful of small glass spheres at them, and they smashed at two of the six Horrors' feet; the other four leapt up and away from the projectiles and were racing across the chamber to meet Corbett even as their changes came upon them. A viscous goo had splashed up from the floor and coated the unfortunate Horrors' shoes. They shrieked, enraged, when they discovered they could not move; the contents of Corbett's spheres had anchored them to the ground.

"Corbett!" Shaw shouted, raising his revolver--and then stayed his hand, transfixed, as he watched Corbett glide across the floor, sword flashing from beneath his trenchcoat. He cut down two of the Horrors as they reached him, moving with a perfect economy of motion, the very picture of lethal grace. Steaming blood splashed up across his cheek as he straightened his arm, thrusting his sword through a third Horror's chest, and then he pulled it back to draw the edge of the blade neatly across the throat of the fourth, all in one smooth, continuous movement.

The scream of tortured metal caught Shaw's attention then, and he looked towards it. One of the Horrors stuck fast had flung some black powder at two of the creatures chained to the wall. As it drifted in front of their faces and they inhaled it, they seemed to swell, and their frenzied attempts to break free of their fetters only increased. The iron staples driven into the walls were pulled out of the stone, and then the creatures were loose. Corbett whirled on them before they had gone more than a half-dozen steps, but then more black powder was in the air, and the other creatures were wrenching themselves free of the wall, and the Horrors trapped by Corbett's adhesive liquid slashed through their boots with their claws to join the fight, unshod.

"Corbett! Move, damn you," Shaw yelled. He couldn't get a clear shot, not with the way that Corbett was matching the vile creations' animal speed and grace move for move, whirling and weaving before them and around them. He thrust his revolver into its holster and waded into the fight, catching up a trailing chain and jerking the hyena-creature backwards into his range, severing its spine with a swift jab of his knife. He could hear Corbett fighting to his left, the sound of sword-steel striking iron and bone a mostly steady rhythm. But Corbett was beginning to slow a little, his breaths coming faster and heavier now, as Shaw watched him cut down two more. His sword got stuck in a Horror's breastbone, and he was kicking the corpse away and off his blade when one of the more grotesque creatures sensed his weakness and ran forward, raising its clawed hands. Shaw bowled into Corbett, bearing him down, and felt the sharp jerk of claws catching the skirt of his trenchcoat, then slicing through the leather. He landed with Corbett on top of him just as the crack of gunfire cut through the room and dropped the creature crouched to spring at them.

Saunders stood in the gap between the door and its stone jamb, pistols raised. He fired the second one, and another monstrosity fell to the ground a half-dozen yards from him, in the throes of death. Corbett flowed back onto his feet, sword at the ready, and reached back to haul Shaw upright. Shaw came up firing, felling three more of the enemy before he had properly regained his footing. Only one creature remained. It snarled and sprang at them, twisting in midair to miss Saunders's bullet, and then crashed to the ground with Corbett's sword through its throat. The air was heavy with the stench of blood and gunsmoke, and the strange, animal odor of the two species of Horrors. The smell was stronger than it ought to have been, thick and clinging in his nostrils.

"Charles, keep Geoff back," Corbett said sharply. Shaw could hear an underlying snap of anxiety in his words. Corbett bent down to retrieve his sword, wiping the blade clean on the coat of one of the less gory Horrors. The clear rasp of wool sliding against steel was unsettling, and Shaw looked back over his shoulder to try to distance himself from the noise. He could see Saunders still standing in the narrowly opened door, blocking Geoff's view with his back. "There's some of that catalyst powder in the air," Corbett explained. Saunders had opened his mouth, probably to retort, but he closed it again without uttering a syllable in protest. Shaw could see a rather bloodthirsty disappointment in his eye, and then Corbett's words registered.

"Ah," Shaw sighed. "Is that why everything--?" He twitched his nose in dismay.

"Yes. We must be quick about things now, though. Once the effects wear off, we shall be lightheaded and plagued with a most unpleasant headache. It makes thinking difficult, much less fighting, I daresay."

Shaw nodded, a weary sort of resignation settling over him. He was heartily sick of Thomas Leeds and his damned Horrors, and his twice-damned machinations.

"Now," Corbett continued. "Let us see what's on the other side of that door." He glanced at a small stone door set in the far wall of the chamber. "Charles, we shan't be but a moment," he was saying, but Shaw had made it halfway across the room before Corbett had finished. By the time Corbett had secured Saunders's promise to keep Geoff out of the room and go no further himself, Shaw was pressing his ear to the door. He heard only the sinister hum of grinding gears and the metallic twang of springs stretching and contracting. His preternaturally sharp ears pricked up at the telltale sound of Corbett's stride hurrying across the floor. He was momentarily gripped by the unsporting urge to slip through the door and leave Corbett behind, but stayed his hand long enough to be just easing the door open as Corbett arrived, crowding behind him and smelling of blood, sweat, leather, and his tobacco. His body's heat soaked through the leather at Shaw's back, and Shaw couldn't stop the shiver that ran through him. But it was neither the time nor the place; they were on a timetable of sorts now. Shaw set his jaw and stepped through the door with Corbett at his heels.

They came out into a high, cylindrical gallery. Two floors were cut into the stone below them, and two above. Huge metal gears, pins, and springs moved in a dizzying pattern at the gallery's center, running the whole of its height. Corbett hissed in satisfaction and leaned forward, and the warmth along Shaw's spine was infused with a frisson of adrenaline.

"There he is, the fiend!" Corbett pointed to the bottommost level, where a man was retreating into another stone door much like the one they'd just come through. Shaw eyed Corbett askance. He looked ready to leap over the railing and drop down to the next level in the gallery. Shaw was preparing to ask him whether he'd like to be handed down when a strange hum began somewhere above them, vibrating the air in Shaw's lungs and the very marrow in his bones. He looked up, then shoved Corbett back through the doorway, falling through it and pulling it to with only an instant to spare. A loud crackle and the sharp smell of a static discharge assaulted their senses.

"He has a giant genny up there. What he's using the 'lectric for, I couldn't say, but we can't go through there." Shaw cursed Leeds under his breath.

"No," Corbett agreed. His gray eyes were bright, almost feverish behind his spectacles. He seemed to take no notice of the tiny smudge of blood at the bottom of the left lens. Shaw felt himself responding to Corbett's excitement, his own hunter's instinct quickening over the banked heat lodged somewhere low in his belly, and he followed Corbett back to Saunders. He stopped only once to retrieve one of the Horrors' powder packets. Corbett slowed to watch him, then nodded. "Yes," he said slowly, "yes, I'm afraid that's rather a good idea," and led the way past Saunders, back out into the stone antechamber, and into the corridor beyond.

 

They stood inside another wide room, the four of them: he and Shaw shoulder-to-shoulder, Charles and Geoff just before the door and behind them. The second dose of the Horrors' catalyst threw everything into sharp relief; he could almost smell Leeds's smugness in the intervening space between them. A pale, flickering light from the line of electric candles jutting down from the ceiling illuminated only the center of the room, but it was clear that Leeds was not alone. The musky stink of man-like Horrors tickled the edge of Corbett's awareness--more Horrors lurked in the shadows behind the wide, high shelves crammed with medical instruments, bits of twisted metal, and countless jars and tubes filled with unwholesome-looking powders and liquids.

"Minister," Leeds said as a smile split his iron-gray beard. There was no cordiality in the expression. His voice was oily and unctuous, but the arrogance in his posture belied his tone. Corbett could hear Geoff's breath stutter, and then he was utterly still. Corbett chanced a look at Shaw, who shifted his footing to stand closer to the boy, blocking as much of him from Leeds's view with his broad back as he could. Charles was grinding his teeth, fairly vibrating with suppressed violence.

"Captain Shaw. I shouldn't be so surprised; you were far too observant to be a mere airman. And Viscount Severn, what an unexpected honor to welcome you to my humble laboratory. I see you've returned my chimaera to me. After my son," he gestured in the shadows behind him, where Corbett could just make out the pale, thin form of Nicholas Leeds, "he is my most successful creation. I was quite bereft when I returned to find him fled from the only home he's ever known. What an ungrateful thing he is." Charles let out a low, savage growl and made as if to step forward, but Corbett halted him with a hand thrust back. For the moment, Leeds was content to lord his superiority over them. If they let him, he and Shaw might gain extra time to absorb their surroundings and mark the number of Horrors still skulking in the shadows.

"It took me far too long to discover what had happened to him. When my chimaeras came back from their search, they told me he'd thrown himself into the sea. They will do that from time to time, my creatures. There's no accounting for animal instinct. Who can say why an otherwise faithful dog snaps at the hand of his lord and master?" He smiled cruelly, eyes fixed on the boy. "Oh, how he used to snap!"

Geoff said nothing. Corbett chanced a quick glance at him. He stood a little behind and next to Charles, with Charles's hand on his shoulder, and did not move. Corbett couldn't tell his state of emotion, could smell nothing on him; he was still as a rabbit frozen in a field when it senses a hawk overhead. Things in the shadows moved restlessly, as though sensing weakness. Corbett imagined they were eager to pounce, and when Shaw took a deep breath and relaxed himself into a looser, fighter's version of his stance, he knew Shaw shared his anxiety.

"Never mind." Leeds smiled, a menacing expression that bared his teeth. Like an animal's, Corbett thought, like a Horror's. "I have only returned to collect more of my beasts to set loose in eastern Europe. If this second round of assassinations is as successful as the first, I shall have to consider stepping up my plans."

"Ah, yes, your plans," Corbett said, weighting his words with an unmistakable disdain. "Allow me to step in so you may cease your tiresome monologueing. That is what you were doing, wasn't it? Monologueing?" Leeds's expression flashed from smug to shocked, then to stiff with outrage, his cheeks flushing a dark, ugly color. Corbett supposed that it had been quite a long time since anyone had spoken to Leeds in such a manner; the man had been successfully currying power and favor as a dragon hoards gold for the previous fifteen years. If he could get Leeds's back up, perhaps he'd make a critical misstep.

"You seek to control the trade routes between Britain and the Orient. The last decade's worth of political scheming has allowed you to reach your goal of insinuating yourself as the governor overseeing the most prosperous, significant 'port city on the most common trade route. The overland routes have always been dangerous and difficult, and until recently, aviation technology made it impractical to consider transporting goods by air. By ensuring that the overland routes continue to be impractical for caravans and airships alike, you'll maintain your stature and increase your influence, not only in Britain, but in the East as well, dictating terms as you collect favors and bribes from politicians and merchants alike. And in another ten years at most, when you have half of Parliament indebted to you through enticements or cowed by threats, I daresay you fancy you'll be Prime Minister, and perhaps ruler of the Empire yourself soon thereafter."

"It's no fancy," Leeds hissed. His fingers curled and uncurled, as though he imagined them about Corbett's neck and was trying to squeeze the life from him. "You think I cannot succeed? Look what I have done! Harnessing the power of an underwater volcano, I raised this island from the sea." Charles gasped behind him, and Shaw started, a miniscule twitch of his fingers and a widening of his eyes. Corbett kept himself from showing his dismay at this new intelligence. To tame a volcano and create an island was a horrifying display of power and genius, one that surpassed even Leeds's creation of the Horrors. "I create and control the storms that cover this island and spread over the ocean for fifty miles and more. I conceived of and constructed the first chimaeras, blending animals with each other and with men!" Leeds's voice was rising, shrill anger ringing in his words. "And with the knowledge I gained, I saved my son from death and have become the father of a new race of beings! _I am a god_," he roared.

"A god?" Shaw scoffed. Charles snorted in disgust, echoing Shaw. Leeds took a step forward, fury etched in every line of his countenance, and Corbett reached into his trenchcoat while he was distracted. He tucked the last of his glass stick-fast bombs and the self-fastening clockwork restraints between his fingers, then eased his hands back to his sides. He knew that the Horrors had marked his movements, and he saw Nicholas watching him carefully. But Nicholas said nothing to betray him. He only looked away, past his father and through Corbett, as though he wished to be anywhere else.

"You're no god," Shaw continued. His voice was heavy with contempt, and he drifted a half-step away from Corbett so that Leeds's eyes remained on him.

"You're mad," Charles spat, stepping forward, "mad and despicable."

"And you'll never get away with it," Shaw said. He bent his elbows, raising his hands less than an inch, ready to draw his revolver and his knife, and subtly turned his head a little to face Corbett. It was cleverly done; Corbett was certain Leeds hadn't noticed. Corbett had only to signal him, and Shaw would be ready to spring into action.

"No?" Leeds had a strange gleam in his eye, and there was a note of triumph in his voice. "But I will. After all, I have the perfect weapon." An open packet fell out of his sleeve and into his waiting palm, and he flung a handful of powder in Nicholas's face. It was done before Shaw had finished raising his revolver or Corbett could throw a stick-fast or restraints.

Nicholas cried out in surprise, and then fell to his knees, shaking and clawing at the floor, gasping, "No! Father, please! No! I don't want--"

"Kill them," Leeds shouted. "Kill them, but leave the chimaera alive!"

Horrors leapt from the shadows. Corbett counted seven even as he took two great, leaping steps forward, flinging stick-fasts and restraints at Leeds and Nicholas. The stick-fast bombs shattered open on the floor, but only Nicholas was splashed with the adhesive; Leeds himself had stepped back out of startled reflex, and been missed. The restraints hit Nicholas square in the chest and unspooled in an eyeblink, whipping around him thrice and pulling his arms tight against his sides, before the clamps at the end snapped back into the centerpiece and locked themselves down. He shrieked in animal fury and began struggling wildly.

The restraints that Corbett had aimed at Leeds were intercepted by a Horror. It stuck out its thick, furred hand and crushed the centerpiece before it had unspooled even halfway, breaking the clockwork mechanism and rendering the restraints useless. Corbett threw the last two at other Horrors' backs and spun around, drawing his sword and gutting the Horror behind him. He could hear the crack of gunfire, three distinct shots from Shaw's revolver, and two from Charles's pistols. The only blood he could smell mixing with the gunsmoke in the air belonged to Horrors; Shaw and Charles were unhurt and still fighting, and if Charles remained unharmed, Geoff was safe.

Leeds drew a pistol from his coat. "Turn him!" He pointed the pistol in Geoff and Charles's direction, and Corbett threw himself into the line of fire, sword raised. But no; Corbett saw too late that that wasn't his aim.

"Corbett! Stop him," Shaw gasped. He kicked out at a Horror that had broken free of its restraints, then lunged at it with his knife. His revolver was missing. Corbett spun around, too slow. His unnaturally sharp hearing caught a low, snarling laugh, and the musty scent of more powder filled the air.

"No, damn you!" Charles cried. Corbett slid to the side and hamstrung another Horror coming up behind Shaw. He turned his head, only to see Geoff changing, sprouting claws and fangs and pointed ears, and long, shaggy hair. He growled and took a half-hearted swipe at Charles, pushing him aside hard enough that he crashed into some shelves and fell to the floor, and leapt on the nearest Horror. His claws plunged, twisting, into its neck, coming away with gobbets of muscle and furred skin, and it fell to the ground, choking horribly on its own blood.

"No, damn you!" Leeds echoed. He was staring at Geoff, face empurpled with rage. Geoff bared his teeth, crouching, ready to spring. Leeds snarled back at him, raised his pistol, and fired, but jerked aside as the gun bucked in his hand. Shaw's Bowie knife was buried to the hilt in his shoulder. Leeds only snarled again and fired once more. Corbett felt the wind of the bullet as it flew past his cheek, and smelled the hot, coppery scent of Leeds's blood as his sword sliced across the side of Leeds's neck. Leeds dropped the gun and clapped his hand to his throat.

"Damn you!" he choked. He staggered backwards, falling against the small stone door behind him. He spared not a glance for his son, now nearly free of his restraints, and shuddering as his change was reversed.

Corbett looked over his shoulder. Geoff had lost interest in Leeds and had begun stalking Shaw and the last Horror standing; Charles had struggled back to his feet.

"Geoff," Charles said. He put out his hand, and Geoff's attention shifted again. He sniffed the air, then turned, growling, to look at Corbett. "Geoff," Charles repeated, more firmly, "stop this at once," and Geoff left off his menacing growl. Charles caught Corbett's eye and shook his head once; he would brook no interference. Geoff took a step towards him.

"Corbett, go," Shaw called urgently as the last Horror came at him. There was blood all down its side, and it moved sluggishly. "He's getting away. And he's got my knife!" Even in the midst of the dying chaos around them, Corbett could hear the outrage in Shaw's voice.

The stone door stood ajar, a few paces behind Nicholas, who lay wan and pale, unmoving on the cold floor. "Shaw--"

"I'll get him," Shaw grunted as he caught the wounded Horror's fist, yanking it forward so the creature struck the wall. Corbett backed away from them all, then dashed through the door with his sword held at the ready, following the trail of blood Leeds had left behind.

Leeds hadn't gone far, only into the next room. There were no Horrors chained to the wall here, no shelves filled with bits of metal or jars of strange substances. Leeds was on his knees before a huge metal box, Shaw's gore-encrusted knife on the ground next to him. The box looked to be a logic machine, the largest Corbett had ever seen. Thick glass tubes curved out from its back, filled with clockwork that ticked and clicked over, one gear-tooth at a time, and disappeared down through the floor. Several of the machine's operation levers had streaks of fresh blood on them.

"You," Leeds sneered. Blood flowed sluggishly through his fingers to stain the front of his coat. It shone wetly in the electric candlelight. "You think you've won. But you'll die here--with me and all my secrets." He coughed, grimacing. "In two hours, this island … it will sink beneath the sea … and if your corpses survive the cataclysm," he laughed weakly, gasping for air, "you … you will be the last … of the Morrow's Island Hor--"

Leeds's breath rattled low in his throat, and he sank down to the ground, eyes dull and staring. His end, Corbett thought uncharitably, was rather anticlimactic, and yet fitting at the same time. He would escape the Monarch's justice, but perhaps this fate--to die unmourned, amidst the wreckage of his hubris and his cruel, unnatural experiments--was justice enough.

He had taken a step back and was studying the logic machine when the ground shook beneath his feet--a small, insignificant tremor. The ground shook again, more strongly this time, and Corbett put his hand out to catch his balance. It seemed it was past time and more for them to be gone. He took one last look at the logic machine, at the positions of the levers, and then one final look around the chamber. There were so many secrets in this place, so much knowledge. And all of it was beyond dangerous. He bent to pick up Shaw's knife, wiping it clean on an unbloodied corner of Leeds's coat, then hastened back into the other room, narrowly missing another one of the gallery's static discharges.

"Corbett," Shaw said in relief as he stumbled through the door. He was kneeling by Nicholas, his blue eyes clouded with fatigue and dizziness. "I think the powder's effects have gone," he continued. "It feels like the floor's moving."

"The island's sinking," Corbett said. "Leeds has done something with his infernal machinery. I can only deduce that it will cause his pet volcano to reclaim the island." He held out the Bowie knife, hilt first, and shivered when Shaw's fingers slid over his. He shivered again, feeling the first waves of gentle vertigo and the blooming throb of the inevitable headache, as Shaw took back the knife. "But you may be right."

"Can you stop it?" Shaw asked.

"I might," Corbett said slowly, the words feeling as though they were being spoken from a great distance. He looked at Charles, who was kneeling next to Geoff, his gunpowder-blacked hand resting on the sleeping boy's back, and then at Nicholas Leeds, breathing shallowly on the ground--but breathing still. "But I won't. Let the sea have this damned island, and all its evil with it." He reached down and took Nicholas by the shoulders, lifting him up gently. Shaw got his feet beneath him and stood, if a bit unsteadily, and reached for the boy.

"I'll carry him. Just … in my pocket here," he said, grunting a little under Nicholas's weight and pointing at his left side with his chin, "are the green flares. We'll need them." Corbett slipped his hand into Shaw's trenchcoat, fingers sliding against sweat-soaked linen and cotton as he searched for the pocket. The ground moved again, and Corbett bumped into Nicholas, murmuring an apology to the unconscious boy as he finally found the pocket and touched the heavy, waxed paperboard of the flares.

Charles was already moving, on his feet with Geoff in his arms. Corbett forced himself to go rapidly across the room, stumbling every several paces, to open the door and lead the way.

"We can't take the fissure again, not with these tremors," Corbett said. "But if I'm not much mistaken, there must be a clear way to the great iron door. He cannot have got his equipment in here without--ah!" Corbett led them opposite the way they'd come to this room from the two levels above. A hundred paces along the curved corridor, zig-zagging back and forth for five storeys, were a series of switch-back ramps. Their inclines were steep enough that Charles glared at him over Geoff's head, and Corbett was certain that had he had the breath for it, he'd have made some cutting comment. As it was, he only began climbing wearily.

The distance seemed greater than it truly could have been, and the journey up to the wide iron doors took what must have been hours, but for the fact that they still climbed, swaying on their feet and falling twice when a strong vibration made the stone behind them crack dangerously, and the ocean still did not rush in to drown them. Corbett despaired of escape for a moment when he could not see, through his aching, fatigue-blurred eyes, how to force open Leeds's great metal doors, but then he saw a wide lever set into the wall. They stumbled into the clearing, past Leeds's dirigible, and stood, anxiously scanning the cloud-heavy sky. No lightning interrupted the dark of the late afternoon.

"Light 'em," Shaw groaned. He folded to the ground, Nicholas in his lap. Behind him, Charles did the same, and they leaned together, each supporting the other with his weight. "Two now, then two more when they start to burn out, then the last." Corbett knelt a few paces from them, heedless of the sharp stones that bit into his knees and shins. His hands trembled as he twisted the bottoms of the flares to expose the fuses, and he had to use both hands to hold and spark his naphtha lighter. He pretended to himself that it was the increased shaking of the ground beneath him that made him so clumsy.

The brilliant green light blinded him as it leapt from his hands and arced up into the sky, trailing pale smoke and dying sparks behind it as it went. The flares hung in the air for several minutes, drifting gently downward, before Corbett had to light the second set. His hands shook so badly this time that he burned himself lighting the fourth flare. He was just readying the fuses on the last two when Shaw's head came up.

"She's here," he breathed. Corbett listened. Over the slow, grinding rumble that was gradually building beneath them, punctuated by the booming cracks of breaking rock, he could hear the thrum of the _Kite_'s engines. The air filled with the light tang of thrice-refined naphtha, and finally the great silver belly of the _Kite_ was hovering over them. Her side opened, and Smitty and two others of Shaw's crew leapt from the hatch, skimming down ropes to land before them. They had harnesses--tight, uncomfortable things that chafed in all the tenderest places--which they wrestled them into one at a time, and then they were lifted heavenward as the ground fell away, cracked and broken, beneath them.

 

**September 9th, 1898 – Thames House, London**

Corbett's office was more disgraceful than usual. The spymaster sat behind his desk, partly obscured by a pile of haphazardly stacked books and papers. He had a smudge of blue ink on his spectacles and his cheek, and his ink-black fingertips were in danger of being burned by the lit cigarette pinched between them. He was staring into the corner of the room, lips pursed pensively as he began to doodle idly on the dispatch in front of him.

Shaw cleared his throat, and Corbett started. He brought the cigarette to his lips, then apparently thought better of it and attempted to stub it out. Ash spilled from the open mouth of his ceramic frog, and it only spread further over his desk when he forced the butt in among its fellows. Shaw sighed inwardly. A mess like this would take more than a day or two to tame and put to rights.

"You just missed Charles," Corbett said brightly.

"Yeah," Shaw said. He felt the corners of his mouth quirk upward despite his dismay over the state of Corbett's office, and pulled off his cap. "I met him and Geoff on my way in. He says they're on their way to visit Nicholas. Heard he's staying with an elderly aunt in the countryside, and doing well. Saunders said the physicians think he's mostly recovered from the shock. The shock of what, I'm sure they don't know, but I'm glad to hear he's doing well enough."

"Indeed." Corbett stroked the frog with his forefinger. Shaw watched the way it skimmed over the smooth ceramic and felt a moment's envy. Corbett looked at him from over the wire rims of his spectacles. "And how did things go in Scotland?"

"Scotland." Shaw dropped his cap on the nearest stack of books and rubbed his chin. "Fellow called 'Black Ewan MacNab' was using something called 'corpse powder' to animate the bodies of the recently deceased. He got the powder in Haiti, and got the idea from watching one of their holy men make, ah, 'zombi' with it. The only difference is 'zombi' are alive--they're people in some sort of drugged, mesmerist's trance--and the things MacNab was making weren't. They were ambulatory corpses, rotting tissues and all. He used 'em like highwaymen, to overpower the quality on their way to and from engagements at night."

"However did he manage to use the corpse powder on real corpses?" Corbett sounded very interested.

"I have his full confession here." Shaw reached into his trenchcoat and pulled out the leather document case that held his report. "To sum up, he enhanced the powder--" here he scowled, feeling oddly offended, then continued a little plaintively, "--why's it always a bloody, bedamned powder?--with an alchemical recipe he discovered in the crypt of an eleventh-century kirk. MacNab's been turned over to the proper authorities, and I burned the zombi, the remaining powder, and his notes--after I encrypted 'em--with my own hands. The whole of the report's right here, with the confession." He waved the document case, then waded through a few feet of books to place it on Corbett's desk. The case's presence on the desk evidently disturbed some sort of perfect equilibrium, because the haphazard stack slid off the desktop, over Corbett's lap, and onto the floor.

"Ah," Corbett said in some surprise. "Well, I'll read over that later, shall I?"

"Yeah." Shaw ran his hand through his hair. He could feel it sticking up at the front, but he didn't care. Corbett was easily four times the mess he was, and he still looked damned good. Enticing, like he always did. Shaw wondered briefly whether Corbett noticed him noticing, and whether Corbett thought he looked as appealing, regardless of the state of his hair. A man could hope. "So what's next? Ireland?"

"No, you'll be in London a while," Corbett said. "We've been hearing strange reports about an, er, 'invisible man' who's stealing from the banks, and who is even rumored to have plundered some of the peers' town homes. If truth be told, we've experienced an increase in, er, odd crimes of late. I'm beginning to wonder if we might not be dealing with a league of extraordinary criminals."

"Extraordinary, huh." Shaw sighed. He felt a little of the hopeful, anticipatory tension in his muscles draining away. _Extraordinary_ meant _troublesome._ Also, _unpleasant_ and _difficult,_ and sometimes even _horrifying._ "I can't wait."

"Oh, I'm afraid you'll have to wait," Corbett said. He was watching Shaw, a particular sort of interest creeping into his expression.

"Yeah?" Shaw felt himself flush with heat, and a tingle raced down his spine to settle low in his stomach, his anticipation thoroughly revived. He grinned lazily, then relaxed into his stance, hooking his thumb in his gunbelt so his trenchcoat fell open a little below the waist. Corbett removed his spectacles, and a slow smile worked its way across his face. The glint in his gray eyes was full of promise.

"Welcome back, Captain," he said in a low, warm voice, and stood to walk around the desk.

 

~*~

 

> Cambridge  
> June 9th, 1935
> 
> My dear Simon,
> 
> When your last letter arrived, I was expecting something rather different. Knowing what a terrible prankster you are, I thought at first it must be some elaborate joke. But then I remembered that your sense of humor runs to the puerile, and you would in no wise go so far to simply "take the piss." (Though that sketch you enclosed defies belief, and do I have half a mind to accuse you of exaggeration on that account.)
> 
> You know I've always taken great pleasure in saying "I told you so" ever since we were at school, especially to you. Well, Simon, I told you so! Mother's third cousin Kenneth loved to tell her outlandish tales when he came by her childhood home in the course of his work, and while she never believed his stories, I always have. You cannot know how happy your find makes me. And no, I speak not only of the port, though the thought of the bottle in my hands makes me very happy, indeed.
> 
> My thanks to you, old boy, for being so sporting; I feel generous enough that I am moved to share the port with you.
> 
> I shall expect to see you in a fortnight. Remember the bottle! And do give your father my regards, won't you?
> 
> Triumphantly yours,  
> Jeremy Halstead

  


End

 

**Desk!Sex Omake**

_Corbett removed his spectacles, and a slow smile worked its way across his face. The glint in his gray eyes was full of promise._

"Welcome back, Captain," he said in a low, warm voice, and stood to walk around the desk.

Corbett's ink-smudged spectacles fell from his hand as he came around the corner of his desk. They landed next to the ceramic frog, atop the piles of ash and burnt, stubbed-out, and otherwise mangled cigarette ends. Shaw sighed, a quietly exasperated sound, but Corbett ignored him, choosing instead to strip off his canvas oversleeves, one stiff fabric tube at a time. He intended to draw this out--to watch Shaw's increasing interest reflected in the darkening flush of his cheeks and the brightness of his eyes, and then to enjoy the benefits of Shaw's frustrated excitement. His own pulse quickened as he dropped the sleeves on top of his spectacles and the frog ash-tray, then reached around to tug at the apron strings knotted behind his back. The apron briefly joined the oversleeves and spectacles before softly spilling over the edge of the desk and coming to rest on any number of important memoranda, dispatches, and briefs scattered over the uneven book-stacks that flanked his chair.

He reached for Shaw, who was turning to meet him, and slid his hands inside Shaw's trenchcoat, inhaling the scent of warm, well-worn leather and the faint, chemical tang of thrice that clung to Shaw's hair. He pushed the coat from Shaw's shoulders and stepped forward, crowding him against the desk. More papers and a book joined their fellows on the floor with a flutter and a thump when Shaw fetched up against the desk's edge.

"Cor--" Shaw began, but Corbett silenced him with his mouth, tongue sliding between Shaw's lips to taste the peppery bite of tequila there, and then to trace the soft, wet skin of his lower lip.

"Hmm?" Corbett bit down. Shaw inhaled sharply, closing his eyes, and his hands clenched into fists that drew up the fabric of Corbett's shirt and half-buttoned waistcoat. The curl of Shaw's littlest finger resting against the small of his back sent a sharp thrill through him. He had been entertaining the notion of leading Shaw back to the bedchamber (the bed had only a score of books scattered across it, in anticipation of Shaw's return), but he found himself suddenly unwilling to break their kiss for even a moment. And the idea of disarranging his desk further--of leaving it messy with the evidence of their fervor, and then watching the mix of resigned annoyance and dismay creep its way across Shaw's face at the state of it, first when he realized what Corbett was about, and then again, when he recovered from the post-coital euphoria--was frankly diverting.

"It's getting quite long," Corbett murmured, tangling his fingers in Shaw's hair. The locks were silky and slightly damp from a mix of fog and perspiration. "You'll look a proper aviator in no time," he continued, deftly looping a few strands into a complicated little love-knot. He smiled as Shaw closed his eyes again, enjoying the sensations while remaining unaware of what Corbett was doing.

"I've never looked a proper anything," Shaw murmured back. He tilted his head forward and pressed his lips against Corbett's again, then slid them along his jawline until his breath tickled Corbett's ear. Corbett's skin tingled with an electric energy in their wake. "Unless it's a rogue," Shaw confided, his voice low and intimate. The tip of his tongue traced the edge of Corbett's ear, and then his strong, sharp teeth closed on Corbett's ear-lobe.

"Mmm, a rogue. Indeed," Corbett laughed softly as a gentle shudder worked its way down his spine. The faint undulation stopped short of reaching his hands, which were now busy tugging and pulling at the tight knots securing the Bowie knife to Shaw's thigh, and he made quick work of unpicking the leather and walking his fingers up the warm, firm length of Shaw's leg. His nails struck the metal buckle of the gunbelt cinched around Shaw's waist, but even with the welcome distraction of Shaw's mouth pulling up what was sure to be a magnificent mark on the sensitive skin of his neck, he had Shaw's belt and trousers undone in an instant. He ran his hands along the ridged muscles of Shaw's stomach, dragging the fabric of his shirt upward and then tugging it over Shaw's head. It was most convenient that the captain liked to go about with the top buttons of his shirt undone--the better to show off the tantalizing view of his throat and collarbones, and to make this business of undressing go all the more quickly.

"You're wearing too much," Shaw muttered, yanking open Corbett's waistcoat. Some of the still-fastened buttons slipped easily from their holes, but one or two remained stubbornly fast before finally flying off and landing with a soft rattle somewhere among the books and papers on the floor. Shaw tugged Corbett's shirt from his trousers and slid his hands up the front of his torso. The flush of prickling heat that spread through him made Corbett close his eyes and bite his lip, and he gasped as the cool metal of Shaw's iron-titanium rings pressed against his ribs.

"You may be right," Corbett answered, opening his eyes and looking downward thoughtfully, determined to regain his advantage, "but I think the same might still be said of you." He hooked his thumbs in the loose waistband of Shaw's trousers and pushed them down, then lightly ran his fingertips down the curve of Shaw's newly exposed skin. "Turn around."

"Damn," Shaw groaned. He glanced over his shoulder at the desk, a mix of avid anticipation and dawning comprehension flashing across his features. Anticipation won out, however--and quite easily, it seemed--and soon enough, Shaw turned to face the clutter.

The corner of Corbett's mouth quirked upward. "Doubtless you intended to set things in order later, anyway," he said drily, and reached into his pocket. He drew out a small glass bottle and pulled the India-rubber stopper from it. The gear-lubricating oil was pleasantly slippery and warm from his body's natural heat, and with it, his fingers slipped easily between Shaw's buttocks. Shaw drew in a sharp breath, and his palms hit the desk with a paper-muffled thump as Corbett slowly and deliberately worked his fingers inside.

"Damn it, Corbett! Quit your--_nnh_\--lollygagging!" The thread of raw impatience in Shaw's voice sent another slow rush of heat sweeping through him, and a shivering twist of lust further loosened his tenuous control over his desire. Corbett unfastened his trousers and freed himself from their confines, rather more eager than he'd meant to be by this point. Shaw was proving to make sticking to his plans, however delicious they might be in theory, a rather more difficult accomplishment than he was accustomed to. He found that somehow, he didn't really mind.

"Ah." Corbett spread his hands over Shaw's buttocks and slid them upward. He curled his fingers into the hollows of Shaw's hips, bringing up gooseflesh on Shaw's skin and pulling a soft, expectant noise from low in his throat. "Well then, my dear captain. Into the breach, as it were," he said with a sly grin, and pressed forward.

Shaw's strangled laugh turned into an equally strangled groan, and over a sudden wave of sensation and the rushing noise in his ears, Corbett dimly heard the sounds of paper first crumpling, then ripping. He canted his hips, pressing deeper and stifling a groan of his own as Shaw clenched around him, and looked where Shaw's hands clutched at the far edge of his desk, his knuckles white with the strength of his grip.

_"Corbett."_ Shaw's voice was strained and demanding, and in answer, Corbett began thrusting with long, languid movements. A knot of excitement rose within him, urging him to speed them both to completion, but he forced it back down. He'd have to give in to his growing desire soon enough, but for now, he wanted to tease Shaw--to tease himself--a little longer. Corbett bent down, moving his hands over Shaw's sides and the warm, damp skin of his back, never altering the rhythm of his thrusts. He traced question and exclamation marks along Shaw's spine with his fingertips and thumbs, and then on the back of his neck with his tongue, punctuating them with an occasional, biting kiss or a sudden, sharp pressure of his nails. Shaw shuddered and arched into each touch, panting, his breath rasping in his throat as his skin grew warmer, faint pink marks blooming where Corbett's mouth and hands had been. A trembling began in Shaw's limbs, an eager tension in the bunch and slide of the muscles of his back and shoulders transmitting itself to Corbett as they moved together.

Corbett reached for him, molding his hand to the shape of Shaw's cock. The imprint of it was hot against his palm, and Shaw moaned, a hoarse, primal sound that Corbett found struck some sort of deep, animal chord within him. Goaded by Shaw's obvious need for release, Corbett let slip the last vestiges of control and moved his hand in firm, rapid strokes, keeping almost-perfect time with his thrusts. He heard the sound of wood splintering as Shaw's rings bit into the edge of his desk with the force of his orgasm, and then a wrenching pleasure swept through him as he surrendered to the prolonged, shuddering spasms that had already taken Shaw.

When he felt a little recovered, Corbett draped himself over Shaw's back, resting his cheek against Shaw's sweat-slick shoulder, and let out a small sigh of contentment. Shaw's arms shook slightly with the added weight, and he collapsed to his elbows, head hanging down over the edge of the desk. The hair at the nape of his neck was wet with perspiration, and the love-knot Corbett had tied there had gotten snarled. Corbett picked at the knot absently for a moment before he straightened up, shivering with remembered pleasure as his softening cock slid from the close warmth of Shaw's body. Shaw shifted on his elbows, nudging a smeared, crumpled memorandum as Corbett pulled away.

"I daresay some of these dispatches and reports are unsalvageable," Corbett observed, eyeing the bits of wet, mangled paper strewn over the desktop. "I'll have to have them re-copied before we can go over them, wouldn't you say?" Shaw started and pushed himself up, turning to face him. Corbett took a small step back.

"Re-copied?"

"Mm. Barlow has a fairly neat hand," Corbett said. He watched Shaw from beneath his lashes. Shaw's face, already flushed from their exertions, went a few shades darker. It was both charming and a little unexpected from the man who'd reportedly fornicated his way across the American continents. Corbett felt the warm, post-coital glow in his stomach move up into the vicinity of his chest.

"So do I," Shaw answered promptly. He looked down at the hopelessly disordered desk, then at his own state of half-dressed dishevelment.

"Indeed you do," Corbett replied. He smiled. "But still later, I think, after--" He reached up and slid his hands into Shaw's hair again, tugging gently at the dark, messy locks. Shaw's eyes flashed with an answering heat, and he had his tongue in Corbett's mouth before Corbett had finished speaking.

 

The re-copying of the ruined papers and the putting of his office to rights happened--just as Corbett had intended they should--much, much later, indeed.


End file.
